The first Broadway revival of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate was filled with as much anticipation as the premiere of a new musical. The original Broadway version of 1948, a landmark in theatre history, was the first musical to win a Tony Award and spun off the 1953 film version (originally made in 3D). Add to that legacy the curiosity of theatre fans who eagerly awaited a revival of the show which follows movie star Lilli Vanessi (Marin Mazzie) and her ego-driven ex-husband Fred Graham (Brian Stokes Mitchell) as they mount a musical version of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew.
While early publicity stills, showing Mazzie and Stokes Mitchell duking it out in boxing gear, smacked of a potentially updated Kate, the new production stays true to the original, in its own fashion, of course. Director Michael Blakemore and playwright John Guare (who isn't officially credited) slightly brushed up the original book by the husband-and-wife duo of Samuel and Bella Spewack. Meanwhile, on the staging side, Blakemore, joined by choreographer Kathleen Marshall and the design team of Robin Wagner (scenic design), Martin Pakledinaz (costumes), Peter Kaczorowski (lighting), and Tony Meola (sound) retraced the show's roots, the theatrical style of the late 40s. "You know that on a show like this it's very hard, because the first production was held in such high esteem. I would have people come up and say, 'I have waited 60 years to see Kiss Me, Kate on Broadway,' " says Pakledinaz. "Michael Blakemore's feeling was 'If it's not broke, don't fix it.' It's a show that just needs to be presented."
And well presented it is, in a collaborative design that knowingly conjures the two worlds where Lilli and Fred struggle to cohabitate--backstage and on the boards. "Michael basically did not want to do a pastiche musical," says set designer Wagner. "He felt that the backstage scenes should be as real as we could make them. And the onstage scenes or the show-within-a-show could become very artificial and use old theatrical devices whenever and wherever possible."
Creating a reality for the backstage scenes came naturally to Wagner. "I've been living in them for about 40 years," he laughs. "And I think I've done more backstage musicals than anyone." [For those who are counting, they include: A Chorus Line, 42nd Street, City of Angels and Mack and Mabel (behind the scenes on a movie set), On the 20th Century, Jerome Robbins' Broadway, Side Show (backstage at the circus), Crazy for You, Dreamgirls, and Sugar.
To bring the backstage world he knows so well onstage, Wagner began by envisioning the load-in of Fred Graham's production at Ford's Theatre in Baltimore, the first scene in Act I. "We had to create a loading door which led inside of the theatre and showed part of the outside, or what we called the alley," says Wagner. "In so many of those theatres out of town, you load down an alley and you can never get the scenery around the corner because buildings were put up after the theatre was built. So we loaded in some costumes and the actors through the loading door."
The second scene takes place in the backstage corridor, a brick wall and various levels of stairs leading up to dressing-room doors. The perspective then shifts, presumably behind the doors, in following scenes that take place inside Fred and Lilli's dressing rooms, strategically placed side by side. "Her dressing room is very large and I'm sure one of the perks in her contract was that it be luxurious," the designer explains. "And because there's no money in the production and he's just barely getting by, we put him in the utility closet. It tells you something about the nature of the relationship and who has the dollars."
Technically, the most difficult set was the theatre alley, the setting for the show-stopping number "Too Darn Hot." "Again, we had to create a reality, but a reality of being outdoors," the designer explains. "In order to know that it's not scenery, those buildings have to be constructed like real buildings. And, of course, the big backstage door itself had to be the same door, but from the outside, which was easy enough, because we just flipped the unit around. But everything else is separate units."
In terms of construction, Wagner had to make set pieces not only look real, but function practically to accommodate Marshall's choreography. This was particularly true for "Bianca," a number where Bill Calhoun (Michael Beresse), the ne'er-do-well actor who plays Lucentio in the play-within-the-play, climbs the set in an athletic dance piece devoted to his girl Lois. "One of the things we talked to Kathleen about was having a set that would be so real that it wouldn't move, it wouldn't budge so she could really use it as a dance prop," the designer explains, adding that the materials are hard, mainly plywood and steel.
For the play-within-the-play, Wagner had to deliver the opposite, scenery that was anything but real. "We made it so flimsy that when somebody slammed the door, the whole flat would shake, something you usually try to avoid," he laughs.
Onstage, the scenery also had to reflect the level of Fred Graham and company's commitment to their show. "I did a lot of research on the period, and they were as serious as they could be in 1948," says Wagner. "But serious in those days was not incredibly serious. It was still all painted scenery. They hadn't gotten into architecture, and everything was moved by hand. It was the pre-winch era."
Designing scenery circa 1948 was particularly compelling for Wagner, who found that the art of old-fashioned theatre crafts is fading away. "No one really knew how to build it," he says. "No one really knew what a cornerblock looked like or what the nail pattern was on a cornerblock. They don't make clinch nails or framing tables anymore. That's the way everything was built when I was coming along."
Rising to the challenge, Hudson Scenic Studio built the sets, Arnold Abramson painted the drops, and Feller Precision provided motors for the scenery. David Peterson was Wagner's associate designer. "It was interesting for me because I was working in that milieu when I came into the theatre," Wagner adds. "I was working for Oliver Smith, who was sort of my mentor, and Ben Edwards. The mechanics of the stage were much simpler then. The rigging was different. The sandbags were different. It was fascinating for me to rediscover all of that."
Wagner's research also took him a little further back in art history, to the Sienese School of the early 17th century, for the faux style of the painted scenery of Padua. "Certain Italian painters in those periods were into a kind of mock perspective," the designer explains. "Because the three-point perspective hadn't been invented yet, they used to draw the sides of things not quite knowing the kind of effect it would have. As a consequence, you never had a reality; you always had a kind of stylization, and that worked well for us."
Drawing mainly from the fresco paintings of Lorenzetti, Wagner created five basic sets for the show-within-a-show, including a piazza, a country road, the church in Padua, and Petruchio and Baptista's houses. However, one of his favorite elements in the show is a whimsical donkey, a photo of which hangs on his wall. "I always felt the donkey in the story was very important because you couldn't ride it and I always imagined it would be a donkey made up of actors because it's supposed to be fake," he says. "Nobody really liked that idea at first and then Kathleen got into it, and the next thing you knew, Michael and Marty got into it. It's amazing how simple the show can be. That seemed to me the underlying nature of the production."
Like Wagner, costume designer Martin Pakledinaz stepped into the show with the task of creating two worlds, late 40s-style backstage clothing and costumes for the play-within-a-play, which were Renaissance with a twist. "Michael Blakemore knew that he didn't want that early Renaissance look, the whole sort of men in tights idea," says the designer. "In general, we needed a little more bravado."
Having worked on numerous projects spanning the Renaissance to Elizabethan eras, the designer was comfortable experimenting with periods. "I actually felt that I was able to play with it and take a different line," he says. "The women, for example, are sort of Renaissance, but we call them the New Look peasants because we added a few of our own touches."
The New Look, referring to Christian Dior's legendary first collection of 1947 and subsequent fashion style, was a major influence, particularly for Lilli's fabulous movie star ensembles. "Lilli talks about her French clothes, but with John Guare and Blakemore rewriting, now we're talking about her Dior French clothes, which was sort of great," says the designer. "I started researching Dior and kept doing drawings and then, to be honest, for her first entrance I thought, 'Well, I'm just going to take Dior's most famous outfit.' We went to the Metropolitan Museum [Costume Collection], measured it and it is, in fact, the Bar suit."
From Lilli's entrance on, Pakledinaz referred to Dior and other designers of the period such as Edith Head, to create clothes that would accentuate the star's Hollywood status. "Blakemore wanted a feeling that we were still in the 40s and the chorus are post-War kids," he says. "They don't look poor, but when Lilli comes in, you know she's from this other world. It's Hollywood and Paris, not Baltimore."
Designing 40s fashions backstage and medieval-style onstage, Pakledinaz began to see costume elements reverberate between the two periods. "You look at the medieval and realize that the women have pagoda hats that are similar to what the New Look people were doing," he explains, adding that many of his choices were also influenced by the color and patterns of Wagner's sets. "I also knew that I wanted to have a lot of color in the 1940s opening outfits when they come in for 'Another Op'nin' and then I realized that a lot of them could actually be the fresco colors [from the set]."
For Fred Graham, Pakledinaz created stage costumes that can be summed up in one word: "heavy." "There's a lot of leather," he laughs. "Also, one thing Kathleen and I liked very much was using the style of slashing, which is a sort of bragging in costume parlance. It was supposed to show that you had lived through sword fights."
For Lois Lane, the ingenue with a showgirl edge, Pakledinaz's tour de force was a Technicolor(R)-blue 1940s peignoir with cream-colored stockings for her star turn in "Always True to You (In My Fashion)." "I guess I was inspired by the Vargas girl image--naughty but nice," he says.
The designer's sentimental favorite is "Too Darn Hot," a number about what goes on offstage during a show. "You have this whole big Renaissance look," he says. "And then you bring it down to a concept Kathleen had of friends in the theatre and how even though they're exhausted and there is a show going on, someone does some steps and everybody joins in."
"We just wanted to show everyone what it was like backstage, where as soon as actors are offstage, they'll take off as much of their costumes as they can, but they're never gonna take off their boots because it's too hard to get them on and off," he adds. "And then for the girls, they knew they wanted something sexy with a lot of leg and garters on the stockings."
Pakledinaz credits his team, including associate costume designer Marion Williams and assistants Eden Miller, Kristin Kraai, and Juliet Ouyoung, for helping to bring his designs to the stage. On the building side, an army of Broadway costumemakers applied their skills. Barbara Matera created costumes for most of the principals. Parsons-Meares did costumes for the suitors, the peasant women, and some of the hats. Carelli Costumes did the Bar suit, the Padua costumes, and rehearsal clothes for the females. Donna Langman also did Padua costumes and some of the entrance costumes for the opening number. Sarah Timberlake supplied the hosiery.
From the cast's point of view, one of the most talked-about costumes was made for the wardrobe supervisor, who watches the number from the periphery. "I decided that the wardrobe supervisor's name would be Edie because she's wearing Edith Head-like blouses and hair," says Pakledinaz. "Now our fabulous wardrobe supervisor on the show is Alyce Gilbert. She's a tall woman, she doesn't wear glasses, but she has gray hair piled on top of her head. So everyone in the theatre came up and said, 'Oh, you put Alyce up onstage!' Alyce says she even gets stopped on the way out because people think she plays the wardrobe person.
"So one day backstage I said to Alyce, 'You know it's Edith Head. I know it's Edith Head. But the world thinks it's Alyce.' And she said, 'I know,'" he laughs. "Alyce would never wear all of that print anyway."
Peter Kaczorowski's lighting for Kiss Me, Kate is one of the more surprising design jobs on Broadway, mostly for what it doesn't do. Most musicals of the moment use lots of saturated color, dramatic beam movements, and other attention-getting devices. Kaczorowski works his magic the old-fashioned way, using subtler means to give the production an understated sense of glamour. In fact, you could almost say that he's paying tribute to the design styles of 1948, the year in which Kiss Me, Kate takes place.
Mention this to Kaczorowski and he takes it as a compliment, adding that he arrived at this approach through a bit of trial and error. "When we first started lighting the musical numbers," he says, referring specifically to the show-within-the-show sequences, "I started putting colors on the scenic drop and the buildings in front of it. But the colors just looked vulgar." Instead, the production's "show" numbers rely heavily on followspots (in this case, three Lycian 1290 XLT long throw spotlights) for that old-time theatrical look. It's a strategy that adds to the festivity of a musical that celebrates theatre in no uncertain terms.
Elsewhere, Kaczorowski's lighting works with Robin Wagner's scenery to create an irresistibly romantic picture of life backstage. Much of the action takes place in the set depicting Fred and Lilli's adjoining dressing rooms, a long, narrow space, shaped like a letterboxed movie screen. Because of the set's architecture, the LD relied on lots of frontlight, coming from the front-of-house truss and box boom positions. In the first extended dressing room sequence, when the lovers' pre-show squabbling gives way to a pair of romantic ballads (the lightly satirical "Wunderbar" and the heartfelt "So in Love"), the designer makes use of ever-so-slightly noticeable color changes to add glamour to the music. Kaczorowski says that the sequence is cued to capitalize on its shifting emotions. "I listened to the audience. The intro to 'Wunderbar' is very funny, full of gags, and they giggle at that." However, he adds, the transition into the main melody evokes a sigh of recognition from the audience. "It's a gushy moment, so I went further and further with the visual, cueing that transition, until I felt that everyone in the audience was satisfied."
Interestingly, this gorgeously traditional moment is achieved with High End Systems Cyberlights(R). "I had 28 of them in the show, which, I think, is a rather modest number," says Kaczorowski. "They're placed front-of-house, to do color racks for moments like 'Wunderbar.'" However, the LD says, in keeping with his concept, the Cyberlights almost never move. (Rare exceptions include an effect suggesting a falling curtain as glimpsed through a stage door, and a followspot effect on ingenue Amy Spanger as she is carried offstage at the end of the number "Always True to You (In My Fashion.)." "A lot of moving around didn't seem right," the LD adds. The latter number is performed in front of the other major backstage set, a towering wall with stairs leading to three levels of dressing rooms. "That set has a lot of electrics connected to it," says Kaczorowski. "There's a bank of ACLs on the top of the downstage piece; the light from them streaks down on the bricks of the wall," adding a bit of crucial detail to the overall look of the set.
In general, Kaczorowski used color choices to help differentiate the play's backstage and onstage worlds. "Most of the show-within-the-show is in a warm world," he says. "There's pastel pink and bastard amber on the drop--most of the buildings have an earthy, stucco-like cast to them." He added a color change for Kate's entrance number, a furious bit of slapstick called "I Hate Men," which establishes her as Petruchio's worthy antagonist. "Marin [Mazzie, who plays Kate] is wearing that blue costume, so I added blue to the number, as much as I could, just to make it as bravura as possible."
Kaczorowski's aesthetic of restraint breaks down a bit--and for good reason--in the second-act opening number, "Too Darn Hot." The scene is an alley space outside the stage door; at stage right is an extension to the theatre, where the chorus dressing rooms are located. It's the intermission of the musical, and chorus dancers and stagehands are mingling. The number is led by Stanley Wayne Mathis and Adriane Lenox, who play Fred and Lilli's dressers, but soon everyone onstage joins in for what may be the longest and most complex extended dance number currently playing on Broadway (its running time is an extraordinary 11 minutes).
The number begins in a sultry sunset bathed in hot colors and moves to a full nighttime look. However, as the number progresses through an array of solos and different dance styles, Kaczorowski punctuates the action with a series of perfectly timed cues that help maintain the level of excitement. For example, he says, "In the middle of the number, they go into the 'Roseland' section, where everyone two-steps around in a big circle; there the lighting gets very bright to serve the music, then segues back down to something sexier and hotter. The lighting basically follows their steps."
The latter remark seems appropriate for a production that the LD describes as the "The most together show I've ever worked on." He gives credit for this to his director and choreographer: "Michael Blakemore walks in the door and exudes class, confidence, and professionalism, and it shakes down from there. Kathleen Marshall was fantastic, as was the crew and company. Everything went so easily--we teched the show in a week, then got through it twice more before previews. It's a happy bunch at the Martin Beck."
Among the happy bunch are assistant lighting designers Traci Klainer and Michael Jones, production electrician Rich Mortell, moving light operator Josh Weitzman, and technical supervisor Artie Siccardi. The lighting package, which also includes equipment from ETC, Arri, Lighting & Electronics, Wybron, and MDG, came from Four Star Lighting (see equipment box). Lighting is controlled by an ETC Obsession 1600 and High End Systems Whole Hog, with a MIDI link between the two.
"We tried to make sure that the backstage scenes stayed real and gritty and the show-within-the-show was fanciful and luminous," says Kaczorowski. Maybe so, but his work (along with that of his colleagues) recalls the lure of a lost Broadway theatre, in a manner that is totally, thoroughly stagestruck. One is sure that Cole Porter wouldn't have it any other way.
One of the main goals in designing sound for the theatre--remaining as transparent as possible--often becomes even more important on Broadway period musicals. Nobody wants to pay a hundred bucks to see the doomed voyagers of the Titanic wearing headsets or the watch the Von Trapp family climb the highest Alp only to find a speaker cluster still higher above them. Such was Tony Meola's challenge on Kiss Me, Kate.
"On a period musical like this, what I want to try and do is not see a microphone or speaker," he says. "I think it's much more important on a show like this than on a show like Footloose or Smokey Joe's Cafe [two previous Meola projects]. So early on, I talked to the costume designer and the set designer about making sure the microphones and speakers weren't too obvious."
Luckily, Meola had plenty of factors in his favor. For one thing, there were no electronic instruments in the orchestra, due in part to a union regulation in which the use of a reduced-size orchestra prohibits synthesizing any instruments. "That way you can get the orchestra to play acoustically," he explains.
The Martin Beck Theatre, Kate's current home, is familiar ground to Meola; he worked on the last tenant in the space, The Sound of Music, and on Guys and Dolls prior to that. "The Martin Beck is a wonderful space for sound, partially because I've been in there so much. I've learned from past mistakes, and I've gotten to know the house better. I love the orchestra pit; it's wooden, with a curved bandshell and a pit rail. And with a musical director like Paul Gemignani, and an orchestrator like Don Sebesky, who are both kind to vocals, you can have this nice live sound coming out and not worry that it's going to cream the lyrics. One guy knows how to write for a Broadway show, and one guy knows how to conduct for a Broadway show, so you don't have three trumpets screaming when you're trying to hear a lyric."
That's not to say that Kiss Me, Kate did not provide Meola with its fair share of challenges. Act I, Scene Three takes place in Fred and Lilli's adjoining dressing rooms. Both rooms were small and enclosed, and the actors playing the roles, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Marin Mazzie, both had some difficulty hearing not only each other but also the orchestra. "It was tricky in the dressing room, but again, Gemignani helped," Meola says. "Those little dressing rooms cut off where the monitors are in the wings, but a lot of the sound comes from the orchestra pit, so we just worked out what came out of the pit acoustically. And then we added these special flat, polyplanar speakers [from Eminent Technologies] for monitors on the upstage wall of the dressing rooms. They had to be really flat, because there were flats flying in and out, and there's no room for anything, so you had to sneak in something that's at least flush with the rails of the flats. And those did the trick."
In addition to the Eminent speakers, Meola and his associate Kai Harada used primarily Apogee speakers, a combination of ACS SAT-3s, AE-5NCs, and AE-5s, as well as Anchor AN-1000x powered speakers. They opted for Apogee AE-12 and Sunfire powered subwoofers. "We love the Sunfire subwoofers," Meola notes. "They're about 10" square. We used them on Sound of Music, but just as a second thought; we had needed a little more low-end upstairs, and Kai recommended them because he'd used them. I think he has one at home. They're quite remarkable."
Other equipment included a mix of Sennheiser MKE-2 Gold and Countryman B-3 wireless mics, Shure, BSS, AKG, Neumann, Crown, and Sennheiser orchestra mics, Apogee H-5000, Yamaha H-7000, and Rane HC-6 amps, and Meola's trusty Cadac J-Type console. ProMix provided the equipment.
There's one challenge Meola and Harada still haven't quite worked out. During the production's backstage scenes, when actors are coming on and off the Taming of the Shrew stage, Meola created sound cues of onstage or audience noise. "It's really hard for the sound operator to get to know all those actor moves and how long they hold the door open, so I experimented with putting a speaker right upstage of the door, and it worked exactly as I wanted it to. Unfortunately, an actor complained that he couldn't hear the cues, even though we had a monitor there as well. I wanted to give him a cue light, but it was far enough into the production that the stage manager didn't want to do it. It's become a very difficult thing for the sub sound operator to get right; learning everybody's timing is really tough. But that's something, if I don't put it on the road or on the English company, then I will get it into New York eventually."
That's right: if you can't get to New York, expect to see this highly praised production at a theatre near you.
Lighting Equipment (partial)
(12) ETC 10-degree 575W Source Fours
(217) ETC 19-degree 575W Source Fours (4 w/iris)
(151) ETC 26-degree 575W Source Fours (2 w/iris)
(141) ETC 36-degree 575W Source Fours
(12) ETC 50-degree 575W Source Fours
(50) ETC 1kW PAR-64 MFLs
(25) PAR-64 1kW NSPs
(24) 28V 600W ACLs
(1) Altman 750W 6" fresnel
(13) LTM Pepper 420s
(10) 750W Mini 10s
(1) 2kW Mini 10 Arri Airflex 2.5kW HMI (#525206) with theatrical spill
Arri Airflex kW HNI (#540206) with theatrical spill ring
(2) Wybron Eclipse dousers for HMIs
Striplights
(28) L&E three-cell 1.5kW broad cycs
(22) 6'0" 75W Ministrips FLD
(4) 7'6" 300W 3 ckt 15-light R40 FLD
Miscellaneous
(3) Lycian 1290 XLT long-throw spotlights @2.5kW
(96) Wybron Scrollers for Source Fours
(50) Wybron Scrollers for Altman PAR-64s
(200) Tophats for Source Fours
(1) MDG hazer
(3) UPS Power Supplies.
(1) 486 desktop computer w/Lightwright, Microsoft Office
(1) Pentium 3 computer w/Iomega internal zip drive with maximum possible RAM for CAD program
Console
(1) ETC Obsession 1600 console w/latest version software.
Dimming
(5) Racks 96 x 2.4kW high-density Sensor dimmers
(1) Rack 48 X 4kW high-density Sensor dimmers
Moving Light Fixtures
(32) High End Cyberlights(R) SV 1.2kW w/City Theatrical Cyber baffles
Console
(1) Whole Hog console w/two monitors
(2) VGA splitters
(3) monitors for Whole Hog
Sound Equipment (partial)
MIXERS
(1) Cadac J-Type 40-slot frame
(1) Cadac J-Type 46-slot frame, comprised of:
(12) programmable dual-input modules w/matrix routing
(68) standard J-Type input modules
(55) motor faders with VCA control
(18) non-motor faders with VCA
(12) subgroup/dual-matrix output modules
(12) VCA master faders w/alpha display
(1) aux module
(1) OSC/PFL module
(1) Comms module
(1) Mark II CCM Module with high-speed copper comms and the latest-version EPROMs.
(2) IBM 486 computers
(2) sets long (15m) Cadac PSU cables.
(4) Rane MLM-82s
(3) 10' keyboard and monitor extension cables
(3) Iomega Zip Drives w/SCSI cable for Cadac
RADIO MICROPHONES
(32) Sennheiser Diversity radio mic system on UHF frequencies
(32) SK-2012 transmitters
(32) EM-2003 receivers
(1) Leitch headphone monitoring system
(1) Sennheiser MCD computer monitoring systems
(120) Sennheiser MKE-2 Golds (60 beige, 60 black)
(30) Countryman B-3s (assorted colors)
LOUDSPEAKERS
(4) Apogee AE-5s
(2) Apogee AE-5HFs
(12) Apogee AE-5NCs
(32) Apogee ACS SAT-3s
(2) Apogee AE -12 subwoofers
(2) Sunfire powered subwoofers
(18) Anchor AN-1000x powered loudspeakers
(2) Eminent Technologies 850-575-5655 flat speakers for 70.7V use
CONTROLLERS & AMPLIFIERS
(7) Apogee P-500RVD processors
(5) Apogee P-SAT -3RVD processors (stereo)
(1) Apogee P-12RVD processor
(10) Yamaha H-7000 amplifiers
(10) Apogee H-5000 amplifiers
(2) Rane HC-6s
PROCESSING EQUIPMENT
(14) Meyer CP-10 EQs
(8) BSS TCS -804s
(2) dbx 166 stereo comp/limiters
(3) Valvotronics Gain-Ryder 3s
(2) Lexicon PCM 81 reverbs w/three memory cards
(1) Lexicon 480L reverb w/2 memory cartridges
PLAYBACK
(1) Denon DN -C680F CD player
(1) Denon DN-770 R cassette deck
(3) Denon DN-995R mini-disk recorders
(1) Panasonic SV -3800 DAT recorder
(2) Denon DN-M1050R mini-disk recorders
INTERCOM
(7) Clear-Com RM 400 four-channel remote stations
(2) Clear-Com MS-440A four-channel main stations
(6) Clear-Com RM 220A two-channel remote stations
(10) Clear-Com RS 501 single-channel beltpacks
(10) Clear-Com RS 502 dual-channel beltpacks
(10) Clear-Com KB 111P loudspeaker stations
(8) Beyer DT 108 headsets
(12) Clear-Com HS-6 handsets
(24) Sennheiser HD-410 headsets
(12) Clear-Com CC-26 headsets
MICROPHONES
(6) Shure 565s
(4) Shure 545s
(3) Shure SM-58s
(3) Shure SM-57s
(6) BSS AR-133 DIs
(2) Sennheiser MD 441s
(22) Sennheiser MKH-40s
(2) Sennheiser MKH-60s
(4) AKG C-414 B/ULS
(2) Neumann U87s
(2) AKG D-112s
6) Sennheiser ME-104/K6Ps
(6) Crown PCC-160s
MISCELLANEOUS
(1) 100A power distribution system w/isolation transformer to run the whole system including musical instrument power, video, and communications
(8) Sony MDR-7506 headphones
(12) sand-filled pit baffles
(12) Furman rackmount power conditioners
(12) Sennheiser HD-series headphones
(1) Macintosh G3 w/at least 64MB RAM and 4GB hard drive and 56k modern, ZIP drive, and TurboMouse
(1) 21" color monitor for Mac
(1) color laser printer for Mac
(1) Macintosh PowerBook G3 400MHz, 128MB, 6GB HD, 56k modern, internal ZIP drive