Sound Design

Idiot’s Delight opened in October of 1979 and it was my last major lighting design assignment while at Michigan but I still had plenty of other work to do before I graduated.

Oh course I still had to work on my MFA Thesis which had various deadlines all year long.
A rough draft of my Thesis support paper and preliminary set, light and costume design drawing were do several times before the final work could begin.
As it turned out that the one on the editors of the play collection book from which I got the copy of The Jew of Malta which teaching at Michigan.
The book was one that I had used in my Shakespeare class back at SUNY Buffalo.

I wanted it to look like I really researched the play, which I did, so I thought it would be good to talk with someone who really knew the script and I made an appointment to meet the English professor who edited the play collection and to talk to him about the play and see if he had any insights or thoughts about the play.
In a nut shell he could not care less, he offered some general comments about the period style and the play and at one point he said “I Think the other editor really worked with that play”.
I was able to include a few quotes from him but he was not really any help.

My first year I took costume design classes in addition to the lights ones and the second year I was in several scene designs classes and had plenty of class design projects to work on.
I moved from the scene shop into the electrics shop and I was now the department Master Electrician.
The job came with several duties that included general maintenance and repair of the stage lights and cables, supervising the lighting in the Arena Theatre and creating the sound effect and music tapes for all of the plays.

One of the first things I had to do was to quickly learn how to cut and splice recording tape.
The plays were not underscored with music as much as it is done today.
There might be preshow music, or change music, but it was mostly buzzers, chimes, dog barks and when possible many sounds were done live onstage.
I did some live recordings of actor’s voices, special music and sound effects I could not find on records.
I also had to figure out how to make long endless loop of tape so I could create 20 minutes of rain.
Typically the effect sounds on records last only a few seconds.
I ended up with a 12 foot loop of tape that ran across the electrics work room.

Sometimes I felt like I was doing an old-time radio as I had to make or record my own sounds for a play.
Today it is all done on the computer which makes much faster and a lot easier then back in 1979.
I remember that I had to go to the record shop and was surprised that they still had a listening booth so I could check out a few records to make sure that I got the right version of the music the director wanted.
It took me a while but I found just the right recording of the Lieutenant Kije Suite by Sergei Prokofiev, best known for his ballet score to Peter and the Wolf.

For plays in the Arena Theatre either I did a quick lighting design or most often I would supervise the student designer.
The designers were a mixture of undergraduate and graduate design majors and sometimes a directing student would give it a try.
Usually the small theatre was easy to take care of as there was another graduate student who took care of the scenic elements and I took care of the sound and lighting.

One time there was some excitement when someone who did not know what they were doing plugged the bare end of a speaker cable into a wall outlet thing it was a work light.
There was a big bang and the speaker caught fire.
Opps, you hope that they will not make that mistake again.


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