Creative consultant, Abe Jacob welcomes attendees and speakers to the 2014 Broadway Sound Master Classes (BSMC), a three-day event bringing Broadway’s top audio professionals together to discuss the creative, technical, and practical challenges involved in creating sound for Broadway. Godfather of Sound, Abe Jacob discusses the past, present, and future of theatre sound design.
Jacob started his career mixing sound for such 1960s rock stars as Jimi Hendrix; the Mamas and the Papas; and Peter, Paul, and Mary; and designed the sound system for the Monterey Pop Festival. His credits range from Jesus Christ Superstar, A Chorus Line, and Pippin to Chicago, Cats, and Evita. As the audio go-to guy for these and other seminal Broadway shows, he virtually created the sound designer position. He continues to actively design, remaining the in-house sound guru at New York City Ballet and Opera. In the past 20 years, Jacob helped secure a charter for sound designers within IATSE (Local 922). In 1993, he helped the Local achieve its first collective bargaining agreement with the League of American Theaters and Producers. In 1999, he helped merge sound designers with Local One. In 2008, he was honored by the United States Institute of Theatre Technology (USITT) for his lifetime achievement , as well as recognized in a USITT monograph USITT Presents: The Designs of Abe Jacob.