Marcello & Jason Bovaird (Lighting Designer)
Sound designer Marcello Lo Ricco says there wasn’t much in-depth discussion about sound with the producer as they’ve worked together on several shows in the past.
“We did discuss casting for the microphone plot and it helped that I’ve worked on several productions of High School Musical,” he added. “The producer did mention that he likes a loud show.”
Marcello’s company LSS Productions supplied all the sound equipment for the show and just used a few venue Ethernet and XLR patch points. It’s a relatively smallish venue with around 350 seats which were filled to around 75% capacity due to the COVID restrictions. This was the first time the production team worked in this venue. There were no audio tech specs available so the producer arranged a venue visit.
For FOH speakers Marcello used a left/right set up of Meyer UPA-1P point source speakers on stands along with a pair of Meyer 500-HP subs. Foldback on stage was via four RCF 310As as side fill.
“I’m glad I didn’t choose to use their FOH speakers as we discovered whilst focusing and plotting that the left array was humming when the stage lighting was dimmed up and down,” said Marcello. “The venue speakers are kept on 24/7. It took a while to find the circuit breakers in the switchboard to turn their speakers off and unfortunately it also turned off the green audio power points in the wings so I ran all our stage power from the orchestra pit.”
For control, Marcello used a DiGiCo SD9 mixing console with a D-Rack for I/O.
“I chose the SD9 because it fit the show and venue in size,” he commented. “Using the D-Rack allowed me to use the venue’s data Ethernet patching to from FOH to Stage without the need of running our multicore or converting audio formats.
“The physical size of the SD9 was perfect with 24 faders and it nicely fit the space at control. It’s light to carry with two people and this is a major factor as I only had one other crew for the bump in and out for this show.
“I’m most comfortable with DCA programming on the SD series DiGiCo consoles and since I was going to be operating the show myself with a relatively short rehearsal schedule this console meant I could work quickly and efficiently.”
Music playback was via backing tracks which were played using QLAB 4 on a Mac mini via a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 audio interface and cued by the Musical Director.
Due to COVID, the production team were practising COVID-safe procedures such as wearing masks.
One of their COVID-safe plans is to limit the sharing of microphones so for this production each person that had a line was given their own headset microphone and bodypack transmitter waist belt for the run of the show. In past High School Musical productions, they’ve usually had a few microphone swaps but for this one, they eliminated the swaps.
Marcello & Anthony Barnhill (Musical Director)
“I used 23 radio microphones for the show; 22 x JAG IMX6A headset microphones and a handheld microphone as a backup,” explained Marcello. “Receivers and transmitters were Sennheiser 300 or 500 series G3 systems in A and G frequency band with our custom antenna and power distribution and Sennheiser A2003 directional antennas. These were set up in the wing. RF was very clean, no issues at all with my original RF coordination for the venue.”
One challenge Marcello encountered was when he saw a run of the show in the venue just before the bump in was that the director and choreographer had blocked some ensemble cast to sing and dance in the area in front of where he was planning to position the front of house speakers.
“There wasn’t any real alternative so I had to try and limit microphones that were used in front of the speakers for a few scenes,” he added. “All four performances went really well and it was a success for all departments especially considering most involved hadn’t worked on a show since February or March 2020! It’s great to be back working in venues!
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