Friends! The Musical Parody, an off-Broadway and Vegas hit, is currently touring the country with Matthew Morrison looking after the audio design.
“I did not receive any specific brief from the Producers,” explained Matthew. “During our week of rehearsals in Adelaide, the Director (Dash Kruck) and the Associate Musical Director (Paul Sinkinson) both had feedback to give me as we did run-throughs as to how they wanted the show to sound.
“They both wanted it to be “loud” during the musical numbers as they wanted to give the vibe that it wasn’t a traditional theatre show as it is a parody, and also wanted to emulate a bit of a rock show vibe, especially for the numbers that were more “rocky”. At the same time the numbers that were more of a ballad they wanted them to be pulled back a bit to give them more of a gentle feel.”
Matthew wasn’t touring any PA on this run, only touring control, whilst utilising what the house PA is in each venue.
For control, Matthew runs an Avid Profle as it is the console that was used last year when they did Friends! The Musical Parody at The Tivoli in Brisbane. As a show file was already built it meant a lot less time for programming was needed this time around, which meant that they were able to get into rehearsals virtually straight away.
“An Avid Profle wouldn’t traditionally be seen as a theatre production console, but I like using Avid and know my way around them fairly well which makes all the difference when you need to get stuff happening quickly,” commented Matthew. “There are a lot of snapshots for this show – about 150 – with a fair amount of them to be triggered very quickly together. To get around the Profiles not-so-user-friendly positioning of the Next button, I am using a footswitch to aid in going to the next scene, which means my hands can always stay on the VCAs.”
Matthew has started using Waves C6 plugins on the console on the female cast and male cast groups so that he can hone in on a frequency trouble spot to tame it quickly if need be.
A Qlab system with two Mac minis running as a main and backup system is utilised with Matthew saying that the Qlab is integral to the show. All of the music and sound effects come from the system and it also MIDI triggers many lighting cues over a MIDI network. Cat5 runs from the lighting console into a switch in the Qlab rack and the Mac minis are plugged into the switch as well.
All of the RF is Shure UR4D which Matthew describes as always rock solid and running Wireless Workbench allows them to do a scan to see what else is around in the band they are using.
Matthew explains that venues have posed some problems having so far done the Dunstan Playhouse in Adelaide and Wrest Point in Hobart.
“The PA in Adelaide was Meyer UPM point source boxes, two per side for the stalls and a single box aside for the balcony,” he said. “The balcony was supplemented by delay speakers and there was also a centre cluster of two UPM boxes as well as front fill speakers and subs. As it was an older point source system I spent as much time as I could to get the boxes to sound great for the show and to ensure I could get enough gain before feedback for the cast’s mics.
“In Hobart at Wrest Point, we were not in a theatre space – it was more akin to a conference room! This room posed a few hurdles. It was flat and not tiered, so being set up at the back of the room felt very far away from the PA! The room also had lots of shiny panelling on the walls and no acoustic panelling. This made the sound bounce around all the walls and introduced its own form of reverb and slap which made it difficult for intelligibility the further back from the PA you were.
“The house PA was a Nexo GeoD system and, as this is a cardioid PA and it was hanging a fair bit in front of the stage, it meant that I was able to get a lot of gain on the cast’s mics and had no feedback at all.”
The mics for this show are all DPA 4088 Core headset mics running into Shure UR Micro packs. Matthew says that the Micro packs are great as they present a very low profle for the cast who wear them on Velcro straps around their waist, or on small pouches that attach to a bra strap. Being small means the packs present less of an irritation when dancing and jumping around on stage.
“The 4088 Core mics are fantastic,” added Matthew. “Being directional they do a great job of being able to get plenty of gain with minimal feedback. This also helps as there are many times the cast are very close to each other for dialogue or singing, so the directional aspect of the 4088’s helps to reduce phase problems and interactions between close mics that are all open to the PA.
“The headsets are very rigid so once they are set to the cast member’s head they don’t move about, which is very helpful as this show has a lot of quick changes. It’s pretty rare for us to get a mic knocked out of position during a quick change, but if it does happen it’s a pretty quick ?x to get the mic back into the correct position.
“We also have a guitar that gets plugged into a Micro pack for a few bits during the show, and we have a UR4D handheld mic as well that we use for a pre-show segment.”
Matthew remarked that the biggest challenge for this gig is being on top of where you are in the script and making sure snapshots are being hit at the correct time. It can be easy to go to the next scene a tad too quickly and cut off a little bit of dialogue or cut off a reverb tail that can then not sound pleasing when it’s abruptly cut.
“You also have to stay on top of any improvisation!” he said. “As this is a comedy show, the actors may add extra bits or slightly change up how a scene is, so it’s vital to stay on top of what’s happening currently and what is about to come up.
“Overall, the tour is going very well. The audience loves the parody and it’s a great feeling when the audience is laughing at the jokes and reacting to what is happening on stage. We still have plenty of shows to go and several different venues to get to still.”
