This production of The Seagull by Anton Chekov directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt used a modern design vocabulary to help tell the story of this classic play. Adrienne asked the design team to focus on emotional journey and the decay that the characters experience as the play progresses. The original music for the transitions and underscoring was heavily influence by the scenic and costume design.
The the monochromatic objects found throughout the set led me to the idea of writing melodies based on the emotional context of the moment on top of repeating musical phrases that provided the drive necessary to move the play forward. The modern silhouette of the clothes and the abstract space the set provided allowed me to explore modern recording techniques like quick panning and heavy amounts of reverb.
All the cues were written in Sibelius and Ableton Live and played back by QLab.
Written by Anton Chekov
Directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt
Sets by Lawrence Moten
Costumes by Adrienne Perry
Lighting by Masha Tsimring
A modern classic by Frank McGuinness, set in a Lebanese basement cell during the 1980s. The play tells the story of three international hostages; one American, one Irishman, and one Englishman; how they deal with each other, their dire situation and their salvation through their compassion.
Original music was written for all the transitions. A chamber string orchestra consisting only of cello, viola and bass was used to mirror the simplicity of their location, yet still provide enough range to cover the characters’ dynamic emotional swings between hope and dejection.
All the cues were written in Sibelius and Ableton Live and played back by QLab.
Written by Frank McGuinness
Directed by Jesse Jou.
Sets and Lighting by Scott Mancha
Costumes by Kristin Isola
Made up of a series of 10 minuet plays by Troy Deutsch that flow between each other like dreams when one is sleeping. The through line between pieces is not a plot but specific emotions, a sense of the surreal and the feeling of being out of place in your environment.
Original music with tight orchestration consisting of viola, cello, bass and sometimes marimba or glockenspiel was written for all the transitions and underscoring. The music captured the sense of dreaming and mystery without loosing the whimsy inherent in the script.
The cues were written in Sibelius and Ableton Live and playback by QLab.
Written by Troy Deutsch
Directed by Ashley Brooke Monroe and Courtney Ulrich.
Sets by Kate Noll
Costumes by Jenny Kessler
Puppets by Brandon Hardy
An early work by Tony Kushner about the rise of the Third Reich in Germany and the rise of Roland Regan. The play compares the Holocaust of the 1930s and 1940s to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s.
All the transition music and most underscoring was original. The ethereal other worldy underscore was created by stretching the historical jazz called for in the script to an extreme degree.
The cues were created with Ableton Live and Logic X and played back by QLab.
written by Tony Kushner
directed by Scott Ebersold
Sets by Adam Rigg
Costumes by Martin Schnellinger
Lighting by Dan Sterns
Projections by Andrew Lazarow & Moe Shahrooz
Vieux Carre is a rarely done Tennessee Williams piece that is an autobiographical play about the act of creating. It describes his first year in New Orleans and the people he met living in a boarding house. He subsequently used their personalities to form the archetypes that are found throughout the rest of his work.
The production required original compositions, actors singing live and found historical music to bridge the scenes and to provide dramatic underscoring.
The cues were built in Logic and Ableton Live. All cues were played back by QLab.
Written by Tennessee Williams
Directed by Joan Macintosh.
Sets by Portia Elmer
Lighting by Solomon Weisbard
Tectonic Theatre Projection’s world premier workshop production about experiencing the world of an autistic person and the lives of people who care for them.
Co-written by Anushka Paris-Carter and Andy Paris
Directed by Andy Paris.
Sets by Adromache Chalfant
Lights by Bradely King
Projections by Grant McDonald
A surreal world premiere production, about the angst of growing older and becoming a decent human being in this post modern age.
Written by Milo Cramer
Directed by Morgan Green
Choreographed by Philip Berezney
Sets by Schuyler Burks
Costumes by Isabelle Coler
Lights by Marika Kent
Ogres is an experience that is part dance, part puppetry and part play that contains no spoken words. All the stories were based on Japanese folktales like the Dojoji, the Baku, the Kuchisake-onna, and many more. Each story was told through movement and music.
The cues were both remixed found music and original compositions based on modern electronic dance bands like Grimes, Stantigold and Austra.
The cues were played back via Ableton Live, and triggered by QLab. All were built in Ableton Live.
Conceived and directed by Adam Rigg
Sets by Adam Rigg
Costumes by Maria Hooper
Lights by Solomon Weisbard
Two men play multiple characters living in the present day Belfast hood. Neither Johnny Meister nor The Stitch have any direction in their lives. Both are living on government welfare and still have the same anger and aggression that their forefathers had during “The Troubles” with nowhere to direct it, except at each other.
Each act is a monologue, describing the same drug fueled night through their particular perspectives. Act 1 presents Johnny’s point of view, Act 2 is The Stitch’s culminating in a car crash and fight between these two thugs. Two actors play multiple characters that fill out the story.
In our production the set and lighting were very simple. A series of Florescent tubes divided the wall and bathed both the actors and the theater in their harsh light.
Sound was used to described specific locations and emotional underscoring. We used various leitmotif for important objects like Johnny’s Knife and locations like the supermarket to give the audience an anchor point for where they physical were and where each character was in their bender.
I am particularly proud of this show because my work was nominated for a Helen Hayes Award in the Outstanding Sound Design, Resident Production category in 2011.
Written by Rosemary Jenkinson
Directed by Des Kennedy
Costumes by Lynly Saunders
Lights by Marianne Meadows
Original compositions not created for any particular project.
Inspired by the work of composers like Steven Reich, Lukas Ligeti, Brian Eno, and Conlon Nancarrow as well as mathematicians like Wacław Sierpiński and Benoit Mandelbrot. I composed a half hour of original music based on the fractal algorithms of Sierpinski's Triangle, Node Counter Sequencing, and a waveform to MIDI interpolation that triggered a modern player piano live in the concert hall. I also explored various software programs including Ableton Live, MaxMSP and Isadora.
The music was accompanied by original projections by Michael F. Bergmann.
For a more detailed account of the creation process please download my thesis as a PDF here.
As part of the class Sound Design for New Plays at the Yale School of Drama I was given a chance to present work in the Yale Art Gallery that was inspired by and revolved around pieces in the gallery my group chose the Nok Heads found in the African Collection.
We were inspired by their human like features and their arrangement. We saw them as a kind of chorus and set out to find their voices; we settled upon blown bottles, tapping bottles and human hums.
To create four algorithmic pieces that the Nok Head Choir would "sing" I first chose the, D Minor scale, I then assigned a value to the way the computer would play the scale. Sometimes moving up the scale would be weighted higher than moving down. Other times I weighted the first note in the scale the highest and the next note the lowest, Each voice in a single piece had a slightly different weighting, and each piece had a significantly different weight.
The music and projections were accompanied by the printed text posted below.
Far far away in a faraway land
Lay thirty three clay people in a clay people bed
Then one day, some non-clay people came
Shook off ancient muds from the clay people heads
One by one awake again
Free from dusts and clay remains
They flew their lives into our gales
Upright and boldly told their tales
Of states and faces marvelous
Of tribal wars cacophonous
Oft they’d quietly whisper hence
Of artsy folk beyond the fence
Far far away from their faraway land
Stood thirty three clay people in their clay people clan
Then one day, some more non-clay people came
Asked “clay people, what would your sounds be today?”
So
One by one they sing their song
Humming clinking going strong
Watch their faces light and fade
Join us in their serenade
Let their sounds wash over you
Blur their faces to one hue.
But when they hush and breathe their dreams
Softly bow and take your leave.
Director - Margot Bordelon
Text - Hansol Jung
Music - Matt Otto
Projections - Kristen Robinson
