No Sound!

After our wild week of shows and travel (see previous posts), the tour slowed down significantly.  This week, our schedules listed a total of four shows, two of which were completed in our very first day.  As we packed up after our Ohio performances in Sylvania, everyone was feeling great.  Halfway done with the week's shows, and it's only Tuesday!  We hopped in our van and cruised to Muncie, IN, the home of Ball State University and the venue for our next performance.

One of the things that I think is incredibly impressive about Theatreworks shows is the way they sound.  I have only had the chance to see one Theatreworks show so far (in a gymnasium in Wisconsin while replacing into an existing Max & Ruby company), but I remember being dazzled by how incredibly professional it sounded. Believe it or not, all the music you hear at a Theatreworks show comes from a tiny Minidisk.  And this isn't some canned piano track -- the show is fully orchestrated, with all the extra "bells and whistles" that you'd expect from a large pit orchestra.  (One of the neat things about working on this show is that the orchestrations were still "under construction" during the rehearsal period, so we got to hear multiple variations as all the kinks got ironed out, and got to dictate some of the timing!)   Our voices are piped through a professional-grade wireless microphone system and mixed live by our stage manager during the performance.  Even in a gym (with our own speakers), the show sounded really great.  I can only imagine what it sounds like when plugged into a theater's sound system.

But a great sound system only goes so far.

At Ball State, we were all loaded in, costumed and ready to cruise through our third of four shows.  And everything was going great!  The auditorium was gigantic, but the kids filled it with laughter and applause, and remained with us as we moved from one story to the next.  I remember feeling like everyone was also in particularly good voice, and the acoustics of this huge theater gave us a little echo that upped the resonance factor just enough so that we could really hear the difference from the stage.

Until "Pirates Don't Change Diapers."

Nic, Kristen and I dove onstage in fill pirate regalia as the oom-pa-pa of the track played.  "Pirates" is one of the stories where the music is split into multiple tracks, as there is a decent amount of dialogue in the story that is not underscored.  This makes our cue lines are extremely important.  And, with rehearsal and repeated performance, we've become pretty attuned to when the track comes in and out.  So you can imagine our surprise when Nic proclaimed his first cue and no music came out of the speakers.

As I looked back to the sound booth, I saw David scrambling furiously at the board.  We continued with the story a capella, adding vocal sound effects to cover those that were missing, and were relieved to hear the music return at Nic's next cue.  A simple glitch in the wiring, I assumed, and David's got it under control.  Yet, one cue later, the sound dropped off again, this time taking our mics with it.  At this point, the entire cast was staring at each other, rather confused.  We continued the story at pace, waiting for our sound to return.  Every track cue was a moment to check in with each other and each time there was a collective "here we go!" breath.  Offstage, house crew members in black scurried back and forth with flashlights, racing to repair what was turning into a major sound snafu.

We finished the number without mics or sound, and headed off stage, waiting for information from the crew as to our next steps.  Turns out, the theater's sound system -- brand new and state-of-the-art -- had mysteriously overloaded and shut itself down.  Twice.  The next, and last, story in the show is "Babymouse: The Musical" and, without music, it barely works (an old stage manager of mine is fond of saying, "Without music, it's just an 'al'"), so we nervously waited in the wings, watching the crew try to determine the cause of the silence and hoping that what felt like an eternity would soon be over.


Of course, as suddenly as it had disappeared, the sound system returned, David forwarded the Minidisk to the appropriate track and off we went (although everyone was definitely on their toes for the rest of the show).  It is still a mystery as to what exactly went wrong, but the house crew was busy on the phone with their local sound company as we were packing up.  What is most notable to me, however, is that, as a cast, we managed to get through the harmonies and tricky rhythmic changes of "Pirates Don't Change Diapers" without much trouble, in time with each other and with the usual enthusiasm that comes with this high-energy story.  I honestly think the story looked practically the same (and Kristen and I may need to go into the vocal sound effects business after our onstage improvisation).  It's also, I think, a good litmus test for where we are as a company.  Our Muncie show was our 53rd performance and our eighth week on the road, which is often the time that everyone in the company starts to get tired, and things begin to get lax.  Not so for the Fancy Ducks!  I suspect this show proved to all of us that we are definitely still in the game.

(P.S.  I have heard from many of my readers that they have been unable to comment on my posts.  I think I have resolved that issue, so have at it!)

Call tomorrow: 8am, Super 8, Terre Haute, IN.  One show, and we're off to Chicagoland for a few days off!

Kid Quote of the Day: At the end of Babymouse (when the set and actors come crashing down and there is a brief silence before an awkward button by Tommy the Rabbit), an eager youngin' in the front row exclaimed in the clear: "It's funny because they fell."  The kid's got timing!

Adult Quote of the Day: Kristen, a woman of many voices, has begun impersonating Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.  Kristen's Marcel often comes out in the van on long car rides.  One day, during an impromptu interview session, "Marcel" defended his inability to recall the day's events by announcing, "I have shell-term memory issues!"  There are more "voices of Kristen" quotes to come, I suspect!