Theater Articles
Building a Show’s Sound Cues
By P.K. Worley
Live theater depends on subtle bits of music. Without it, the production is lifeless and without emotion.
Less than two years ago preparing sound cues for one of the Players shows was a time consuming, arduous task. The poor sound designer would sift through personally owned CDs, usually finding nothing that fits the cues called for in the script. Frantic calls to friends to borrow their disks and trips to the library added to the desperation. The whole process of finding music for the production took way too long.
Now we have iTunes. It's a voluminous collection of practically all recorded music - classical, pop, jazz, religious, country western - and any one song in any category can be found in seconds. The vehicle is the Internet. Once you find a tune on iTunes, you can download it for 99 cents. I've been listening to music all my life and little did I know that during those years I was automatically sorting and sifting all those notes into my memory. So, the task of finding the clues to search a huge database of recorded music is efficient and quick.
Once the small excerpts from various tunes have been recorded, I sit with the director to get his or her approval of the mood of the music. After watching the final blocking of the play, the cues are again edited to exactly fit the timing of the blocking and scene changes. Finally the entire group of cues is recorded to mini disc for actual use in the sound booth during the run of the show. Then comes the tricky part: training a volunteer to master the exact timing of the start of each cue, along with a sensitive ear to adjust volume levels.
Not long ago we had amassed a variety of sound cues, including some very loud thunder. On a particular Friday night during the run of a show, the audience had settled in, deeply engrossed in a tender love scene. Yes, you know what's coming. As a passionate embrace unfolded on stage, and the intended sexy string cue was to play - the folks got hammered with deafening thunder. In spite of the occasional miscue, all of us on the production side of Evergreen Players take great pride in professionally bringing together the acting, the lights, the costumes, the set design - and yes, the sound cues. Kaboom!
P.K. Worley designed the sound for "Sylvia." He is co-director for "The Secret Garden," running July 9-Aug. 8 at Center/Stage. Worley is past president of Evergreen Arts Council and Evergreen Players, and currently serves as a Board member of both organizations.