The Agony of Ecstasy/The Virtuous Burglar
Sound Designer: Jaden Leverett
Director: David Gram
Scenic Designer: Laine Hamburg
Costume Designer: Whitney Locher
Lighting Designer: Kerro Knox 3
Photographer: Chuck Cloud
Concept Statement
The Agony of Ecstasy, by Sabina Berman, and The Virtuous Burglar, by Dario Fo, are two productions about expanding the complex nature of humanity. Expanding complexity is like the tuning of a vintage radio, transitioning between different genres of music and culture, but more importantly various aspects of humanity. It’s achieved within these two shows through finding the balance with eeriness, humor, and descriptive sound cues throughout both of these productions.
For this cue, I collaborated with the show's dramaturge/assistant director and director to create an audible reaction to one of the actors throwing cold coffee out of the window. We agreed on finding a phrase in Spanish based on the setting of Agony of Ecstasy, that had an emotional response like a English swear word.
For this cue, I wanted to make an auditory sound with multiple layers that would audibly sound like typical outdoor noises but also suspiciously convenient. With the cue itself, I added a twig snapping to the sound of bushes being rustled. And to make it really feel even more eerie I slowed down the twig snap as if that is the last sound that alerts the character on stage to start firing the weapon in the scene.
For this cue, I recorded the main characters of the scene, the dentist and nurse, and blended a few sound cues to provide a setting for the characters in an auditory world. My cues in between the actors included an old-fashioned phone being dialed and 2 sets of footsteps, to let the audience know about the physical travel of space.
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The entirety of The Virtuous Burglar scene is solely about Humor and Irony. So to continue on those themes, I wanted to create a humorous way that the burglar character would be caught by the owner of the home. And in the process give up his hiding spot inside of a grandfather clock. To create the cue itself, I used clock gongs and as I raised the pitch of the gongs I made them shorter and shorter as time went on. And as an added effect of humor, I ended the cue with a cartoon sounding "boing" to really get the message across to the audience that the burglar was aroused based on the homeowner's touch on the clock.
Agony of Ecstasy/The Virtuous Burglar Speaker Plot
For this combined production, I placed 4 QSC K8 speakers on the grid above the stage aimed at various parts of the 5 seating units. Also due to our added teeth puppet in the show, I placed a QSC K10 speaker on the balcony. This speaker was solely utilized for the teeth puppet cues so it could be isolated from music and other sounds in the space.
Speaker Plot Plan View
