Why the hell design the sound?

So when I tell people I'm also designing the sound for A New Theory of Vision they look at me sideways (which is actually kind of cool to see... the eyes go vertical).

Don't know why absorb incredulity only to justify it in the blog... but here goes. The audio part of this play is for some reason locked up in my head, and Cat (the director) and I agreed that it needed to come out from there. 

Already about 8 weeks before opening I started working on a string quartet (well Richard Schechner said theatre was becoming the string quartet, so now the string quartet is becoming theatre). The quartet would incorporate two movements roughly similar to the structure of the play, whose acts already had the subtitles I - Duets and Trios II - Grosse Fuga. So the quartet would be a two-movement work that featured thematic play between dual instruments in the first movement and a great fugue of all elements building in canons, inversions, rondos until all voices came together as one voice.   

So that went pretty well (have only one final canon to complete before the quartet is done) and then it became clear the entire play had a very large soundscape - there are something like 170 sound cues in the production script, stemming from a catalog of hundreds of blended sounds. And all these sounds were still very specifically in my head. So I did some farming and recording and collating and then began assembling them all. Good thing the script is done!

The final sound canvas should be a lot of fun... evocative at times, spooky at others. 

Often I say that I write a play thinking of music in the structure, and now I'm actually bringing sound into the fabric of the play. Maybe this will be the first non-musical comedy with a cast recording? Hmmm... 

Tickets on Sale for A New Theory of Vision

Stoked! Tickets are on sale for A New Theory of Vision, which will run March 18 - April 11, Wed-Sat at 8PM at the Kraine Theatre, 85 E.4th Street (between Bowery and 2nd Ave). You just have to go to http://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showCode=NEW156. 

The Web page is under way on the Sanctuary website too: www.sanctuarytheatre.org. We're building the ability for the poster on the page to be clickable to explore the ideas, events and characters of A New Theory of Vision.

Check it out!

lotsa

Excerpts from a manifesto-in-progress.

1. Disagree.
   
   
2. It is not possible to have fun in the theatre. Seats are too uncomfortable. Acting too mannered. Sets are too shoddy; lights too bright. Darkness too pervasive; humor too droll; tragedy too lachrymose.
   
   
3. A drama should last two or fewer minutes; comedy three. Anything longer and we run the risk of wearing out thin patiences, and we can't afford to do that to our subscriber base.
   
   
4. The next great threshold of research in performance: To technologize the audience; to find a way to automate them, downsize, and fire them. 
   
   
5. If you want to have fun in the theatre, put on your goggles…
   
   
6. Argue.
   
   
7. O wait, we don't have a subscriber base. Oh goody.
   
   
8. Behold a new theory of vision to refresh our aching eyes…
   
   
9. Using a low-voltage electric current, run through every seat in the theater, we have created a subnet that enables us to tap into and manifest the dreams of every spectator. 
   
   
10. Talk, talk, talk. When will they shut up and start doing theatre in this place?
    
    
11. Lose.
    
    
12. What creature might be crawling from the slime?
    
    
13. Berkeley posited an existence where illusions were fed to willing minds; where minds met each other on a bare Adobe Flash stage.
    
    
14. What sometime-notion might be rising from the dead?
    
    
15. Befriend.
    
    
16. The new hallucinogens are called theatre. The new antidepressants are called theatre. The new soporifics are called theatre. The new antibiotics are not called anti-theatre.
    
    
17. When I was five, my Grandfather took me to a Broadway show, for which he was conducting the orchestra. I met Robert Goulet backstage. That was the trauma that planted the sand in my oyster. No, Robert Goulet was a perfect gentleman.
    
    
18. A New Theory of Vision is dedicated to 1234567890 Day. At 6:31 pm EST on Friday Feb 13, the Unix time will be 1234567890 - exactly that many seconds since the beginning of Unix time (Jan 1 1970). Another example of consummate perfection.
    

Casting complete; first read-through

We're cast! And it will be:

• Lee: Eric Percival
  
• Cara: Maeve Yore
  
• Ted: Jullian Elfer
  
• Erich: Matt Steiner
  
• Jane/Hariko: Brooke Eddey
  
• MW/Susan: Sonya Tsuchigane
  
• GB: Lawrence Cantor

First read was tonight; read through the final production revision of the script, and though it's just as crazy as we always feared, it's also just as fierce as craziness permits. In short, it's another one of those ferrante comedies (people keep telling me I don't write comedies, I keep blinking and looking offended whenever they say that).

So far the process has been - as one would assume - stressful but fun. Cat is a dream of a director. No, back off, you can't have her! Mwah hah hah.

Next up: Manifesto of a theatre geek, part 176.

From A New Theory of Vision by bob jude ferrante
opening March 18 2009 at the Kraine Theatre:

JANE

I’ve been having this dream where I’m asleep.

LEE                                    

You’re… you’re always… asleep when you dream.

JANE

Excepting daydreams. And don’t give me Berkeley on the subject, we’ve had enough of that dim prat.

LEE

So… you dream you’re asleep.

JANE

And mum comes in, as usual paralytic, and starts the customary screaming at me.

LEE

And that’s it?

JANE

No it’s not bloody it. That’s when I wake up.

LEE

So then you’re awake?

JANE

No. I’m still asleep. And dreaming. And in that dream, in comes me mum.

LEE

Again?

JANE

Again. I’m afraid to sleep. I’m afraid of the dark.

LEE

There’s nothing to be afraid of in the dark.

(JANE cries)

JANE

Your dark isn’t my dark.

***

So yea... the script is in final production draft, the show is cast with the fabulous Cat Parker at the helm and genius George Allision doing production design. Poster design is done... have a look here. 

Hiring the Director

One very cool aspect (continuing on this idea of aspects, which should please the astrologically inclined among us) of being the playwright producer is being able to hire directors. Did I say that already? It bears repeating. 

During the past 8 weeks I had the distinct pleasure of talking to 13 directors - people I variously admired and perhaps had met at various openings around town, but with whom I'd never had the chance to discuss a project. 

Some conversations were briefer than others - after all A New Theory of Vision is a real project with a real production date which means some brilliantly talented directors had real and not-so-brilliant schedule conflicts. 

In some cases also - two specifically, the directors actually read the script and told me that the project wasn't right for the kind of work they liked to do. Which was an interesting response.Do you find that directors are more comfortable turning down work due to creative or stylistic conflict than actors? When I feel more secure in my work myself, someday, might be moved to then ask a director what specifically they didn't like (although one did proffer an explanation, which only led to more questions in my mind, but since they'd turned the project down, didn't want to waste their time).

In most cases however the directors said yes enthusiastically (a massive relief, referring to aforementioned insecurities)  and then I had the weird problem of trying to find a fit amongst a group of incredibly brilliant and talented people, in each case trying to tell them they weren't the only person I was talking to (not wanting to waste their time - OOB directing is a tough enough job) but also wanting to have a good strong sense of how they'd attack the material. Attack is the principal word.

In the end, Cat Parker turned out to have a great affinity for the material, and was also generally delightful to work with. I mean, all the directors I chatted with were friendly and cool, but Cat had a specific and southern warmth and charm to her as well besides being brilliant). 

One thing I did learn. Directors who work the NYC downtown theatre scene are universally intelligent and sharp. These are definitely people you want to hang out with.

What it's Like - The First Eight Aspects

Sanctuary's model for operating is that the playwright is the center of the company.  Not a guest, but the host. In the largest sense. Host and host body.

Although Sanctuary has done this service for several other playwrights now, none have written about what it's like. This seems to leave a big hole in the imagination. Something needs to fill it.

Writing about the experience documents critical parts of its dynamics; makes it more likely Sanctuary will reproduce these dynamics from playwright to playwright. These are the heart of what someone would call the Sanctuary experience. By nature it's an experience few will really have (and we're not sure if Sanctuary will last forever).

So since now the process has chosen me to be the playwright, I plan to document what it is like to be the playwright/producer on a Sanctuary show:

1. Thinking hard about the site and its properties. The shouting properties of the space; its posession and rights to its neighborhood; its sense of dominating energies, its radiances, its shortcomings.
2. Pondering how do you tell the story you want to tell beyond the page and how do you make the script fit the story you want to tell? The script becomes less your calling card and the dynamics of the event begin to supplant it. Then acting on what one infers. 
3. Hearing again all those voices arguing in one's head - characters, critics, supporters, the excited for yous, the tired of hearing its.
4. Having the joy of talking to so many smart directors and getting to choose the one that is organically "right" for the piece and its process. These guys are all uniformly amazing.
5. Knowing how much money there is to spend and figuring out which expenditures are more important. I know this sounds boring, doesn't it? But it's not. Money is the power to do what needs to be done - power is inherent. If we're talking about the power in theatre being given to the playwright, we have to mean - at least in part - that the money is under their control.
6. Realizing that in a sense everyone serves the script - the story, really. In that sense the playwright is yet another midwife.
   
7. Experiencing the exhiliration of juggling the text - largely an object to be heard - and its impacts in the other realms of sensation.
8. Sadly noting that this documentation - fascinating though it might be - must be created peripatetically, as finishing the script and making it acceptable as the controlling document for this event is far more important than documenting the process, however much an honor it is.