System Sound’s Jack Scandrett discusses Moulin Rouge! The Musical and the lengths they went to staging this lavish production
Moulin Rouge! The Musical held its long-awaited Australian opening night on November 12.
Melbourne is the second city in the world to stage the musical that wowed Broadway and swept the Tony Awards, pipping London’s West End curtain-raiser by just hours.
Covid, Covid, Covid…
Covid-19 severely impacted the time frames and scheduling of the technical period and rehearsal. The operator is usually able to watch rehearsals to get their head around the show but in this instance, the rehearsals were shifted to Sydney to get around the Melbourne lockdowns. Ironically, the Sydney lockdowns meant the rehearsals had to be moved to Melbourne one day before the city locked down.
The cast headsets had to be custom made for each cast member prior to the show’s technical rehearsals commencing. Each performer’s mic being made to measure meant a technician had to visit the rehearsal rooms for fittings – with the lockdown in place the show’s Melbourne based team were unable to attend and a Sydney local was required. In a fortunate turn of events, the Sydney local was Courtney Weaver who would then sign up as radio mic technician and travel down to Melbourne with the cast straight into quarantine. Courtney has been with us on Mormon, Chicago, Jersey and School of Rock so it really worked out perfectly!
Something very much worth noting about working around Covid-19 restrictions has been the Marriner Groups generosity in assisting with the many unusual requirements this pandemic situation has created. Jason Marriner (General Manager) and Mark Allen (Technical Manager) have been incredibly supportive of the company and sound department throughout the whole process – making their multiple venues accessible, handling the constantly changing access times and having custom patch panels, signal lines and theatre augmentations such as new hang points for speakers added.
The bump in was in full swing during the time that all worksites were given strict limitations on numbers of personnel. As a result, the cast had to start their stage rehearsals in a different venue beginning at the Comedy Theatre. A full sound system had to be installed for a rehearsal period of five days. This included radio mics, speaker system, mixing console and playback to boot.
When it came to recording the cast for backing, promo etc. the team were unable to use a recording studio because of the limitations, once again so a full recording studio had to be set up on the stage of the Forum Theatre up the road. Fortunately, all these theatres were available at that time and are part of the Marriner Groups portfolio!
Eventually, the full lockdown stopped rehearsals in its tracks – we had to find a solution to allow Louise, the Deputy Head had to learn the show, and Chris the HOD had to stay up to practice when the restrictions began lifting. A full FOH system was set up with our Digico Quantum, D2 reverbs, Waves Soundgrid Extreme and Bricasti Reverb Units with a mini PA of Meyer 500HPs, two UPJs and four Genelec 8030 surrounds.
From that set-up, Chris and Louise would mix the shows on playback from 128 32-bit channel recording with another recording from the SDI video of the MD and show itself on separate screens.
Sound design… in brief
Peter Hylenski and Chris Pratt
The show blends a wide variety of pop styles through its book and as such the equipment is specified to accommodate fully the varied requirements of the production of each style. Waves Sound Grid Extreme is the chosen platform for plug in’s and an Ableton system is used as a part of the band set up along with a multitude of mics and mic positions on each instrument for specific styles. In an interview with ProSoundNetwork, Hylenski recalls “This show traverses many different musical styles, so what I was trying to accomplish with the sound design was to stay true to the musical material, but allow the musicality of our show to connect with the storytelling. The sound really had to connect and work hand in glove. There are moments where it’s a rock concert, and moments where it’s an intimate solo guitar with vocal, so it’s this dynamic, moving, sweeping, cinematic sound in a lot of ways, and that was the goal—to take the audience on a journey.”
Peter uses, wherever possible, signal input, processing and mixing devices allowing for the greatest level of dynamic range – driving signals hot as a rule of thumb, into high-quality equipment, meaning the quieter parts of the waveforms are transparently reproduced and with the noise floor miles away. Upgrading the console’s input to 32-bit analogue input cards for the Digico Q7s stage racks is a great example of one of the many areas in which this is implemented.
John Scandrett, Dave Greasley, Chris Pratt and Dave Letch
The stage incorporates a cabaret theatre-style seating area with tables and seats at the front of the stalls also referred to as a passarelle seating area. This area has a T Shaped performance space through the centre of it and thus brings the performance space right out from the stage into the front of the line arrays. In some instances, performers also use platforms on the furthest most points of the proscenium space placing them close to the underneath area of the arrays. With substantial performance space presenting the issue of fold back coverage and delay adjustments, Moulin Rouge employs a substantial amount of foldback speakers built into the seat discretely and a number of effective “zones” delineating delay times for performers as they move across the stage.
As Australian major commercial venues are often more than double the volume of the venues in New York and London, the audio design includes substantial increases in the size of the delay system and line arrays.
Also, Australia often marks the three or four year period into the production since inception so technologies have often changed and the new launch provides designers with a chance to experiment with or utilise new ideas that they’ve had since the sound design was first put together and copyrighted.
In this instance, the sound design was augmented to accommodate the substantial size of the Regent Theatre, which is among the largest venues in the country by auditorium size and depth. The system has 19 x LFC 900s the Meyer single 18” array-able subs which in this instance are flown for the main PA and are also located on the delay truss, halfway up the auditorium and at the back of the auditorium behind the mixer. There are also two LFC1100 Meyer Subs right and left of the pro. All the subs on the show perform the same function; the difference in the units specified is purely about coverage across the venue. The 900s are used for hanging and inserting into discrete locations due to their size. The delay rings are made up of 24 x UP-Juniors and Meyer Sound MM10 subs.
The upper balcony is serviced by the upper elements of the Leopard Line Arrays and a delay truss of UPQ-1D’s, four specifically.
Another key difference from the US production is that Peter Hylenski has changed the console over from two Avid Venue S6L consoles to a DiGiCo Quantum 7 with several additional updates and modules which we’ll cover in the FOH breakdown!
Part II Coming Soon – More on the AUDIO!!
Company – Global Creatures
CEO & Producer – Carmen Pavlovich
Head of Production – Angela Dalton
Sound Designer – Peter Hylenski
Associate – Simon Matthews
Australian Associate Sound Designer – David Greasley
Head of Department – Christopher Pratt
Deputy – Louise Daley
Head of Radio Mics – Courtney Weaver
Production Sound Engineer – David Letch
