Featuring a cast of Redfoot Youth Theatre members from Year 7 to Year 12, Perth’s Hale School’s performance of The Addams Family was recently held in the main auditorium of the John Inverarity Music and Drama Centre.
Sound designer Scott Jennings says there was a brief meeting to discuss the technical requirements and general vision for the show, but there was plenty of room to expand on it and make it his own.
The PA was Hale School’s installed rig; Clair Brothers KiT12, consisting of three hangs of two boxes in Left, Centre, Right configuration. Front fills were six Clair Brothers 5cxs across the lip of the stage. The subs consisted of Clair Brothers USLP218s. Orchestral fold-backs were a series of d&b E8s with d&b Y10Ps used for stage fill for the cast.
“Sadly, I couldn’t bring in my own system, but for an in-house rig it performed well,” commented Scott. “No system is perfect, the coverage was probably not quite as good as I would have wanted but I really can’t complain.”
Normally Scott would spec a DiGiCo console but the school have an Avid S6L 24D at FOH, and while he has used the S6L on a lot for rock and roll this was his first opportunity to mix a musical on one.
“I must say I was very impressed and with a few small updates from Avid (if you’re reading this), more detail in the snapshot scoping and minor changes to the way the custom layouts work and this would be my number one specified console for musicals,” he remarked.
Scott says that the virtual sound check is an invaluable tool, especially for a school show adding that at the end of the day the whole reason they’re there is to provide the students with an opportunity to learn. The S6L has a very low fuss virtual sound check mode which he used to record most of the rehearsals and eventually the shows.
The orchestra was made up predominately of school students and some professional musicians to round out the sound. After the initial rehearsals, Scott sat the orchestra down in the theatre (in front of the PA for a change) and he mixed some of the key songs.
“For me, it’s a great way to get any mix notes from the MD and instil some confidence in how I’m translating the orchestra out front,” he explained. “For the students, it’s a great way to give them a context for how the whole thing comes together and how great they sounded. It’s also a subtle prompt that yes, we can hear every note you play so don’t stuff it up!”
As to the venue, Scott says that no venue is perfect, but that’s half the fun. Often in school theatres, you battle small stages, less than ideal acoustics and large orchestras set very much amongst the cast.
“Hale was great for all of this, the acoustics of the space are incredibly live, this was a blessing and a curse at times but largely great to work with,” he said. “The stage size was quite good and although we had a large orchestra, the set design and stage depth allowed a great deal of isolation between the orchestra, the cast and in turn the audience.”
The cast was all mic’d with DPA 4061s with ULXD belt-packs. Scott’s preference is always to use hairline micing, even on school shows, as it just sounds so much better, however, it does make mic up very slow and depending on the space they can be a challenge to work with.
“This was my first show in this space so I went with my trusted backup plan,” he revealed. “Still utilising the same mic (4061) but fashioned into a custom headset using some malleable wire and a lot of medical tape. I prefer this to a headset mic like the 4066 for several reasons; they are highly customisable for each member of the cast, regardless of their size, they’re much sturdier and they sound a lot more consistent.”
For the orchestra, Scott used DPA 4099s on all the violins, cellos, flutes, clarinets and saxes, the only exception being anyone depping across two instruments would get a Neuman KM184 instead. Trumpets had Sennheiser MD421s, Beyerdynamic M69 for Trombone and the Keys were on stereo Dis. The drums consisted of a Sennheiser MD421 (the world’s only kick mic says Scott), Shure SM57 on snare, Sennheiser 904s on toms and AKG 414s for overheads. The rest of the percussion section mics were all 414s as well.
“Every musical has the same biggest challenge “hear every word but keep it musical”,” said Scott on the challenges of this production. “This show was no different, working with a centre PA hang is a great first step in achieving this balance. Separating the vocals from the orchestra helps maintain the clarity of the dialogue and lyrics even as you push the overall Dbs of the show. It also leaves spaces for some creative decisions as to where you put different vocals, chorus parts in the out hangs and leads in the centre etc, song by song this helps in the keeping it musical aspect. Addams Family has a lot of comedy in its musical numbers, making sure each of these lines cuts through in the mix is very important. If we’re getting laughs during the songs it’s great feedback that the mix is doing what I need it to.”
Scott says that he has done a lot of pan-am and school musicals and that this show was up there with his favourites.
“The cast and orchestra were such a pleasure to work with, everyone put in so much work, it was great to see that translate so well on stage,” he said. “It was great working in a space that allowed for a lot of creative mixing, I enjoyed pushing the band in certain sections and reigning it in for others. Overall it was a pleasure to be a part of and I think the final product reflected everyone’s hard work.”
Lighting designer Alexander Spartalis was given a skeleton brief which he then took further and developed from that.
“Being a school show, the number one priority is that the students can be seen, with bold colours to create mood,” he commented. “About 50% of the performance took place in front of the house curtain and amongst the audience. This was a challenge to light all the different areas at times with the limited positions available in the theatre – the MAC CT 101s were invaluably versatile to do this.”
Two low lying foggers were cut into the set, and nine Martin RUSH Pars lit the set. Two Chauvet EZ Wedges were also utilised under a school bed to create the eyes of a monster for one scene.
The main rig was a hybrid rig utilising as much of the in house venue standard rig, augmented by extras where needed. It included four Martin MAC700 Profile, seven Martin RUSH Par, eight MAC CT 101, eight Ayrton NandoBeam S6 Wash, 21 x ShowPRO Quad 18 LED Pars, 36 x Selecon Pacific Spots and 14 x Selecon 1.2kw Fresnels. Effects were two Low Foggers, two Unique 2.1 Hazers and a DJ Power Coldsparkler. An MA Lighting grandMA2 onPC Wing was used for control.
