Pulitzer Prize-winner Suzan-Lori Parks has hit another homerun with White Noise, currently on the Anspacher stage at The Public Theater in New York City through May 5, 2019. This emotionally powerful play tackles the complex issues of race and friendship in contemporary society.
Reviewed in New York Magazine as “Radical, brilliant, & eviscerating. An immensely powerful ensemble,” White Noise, directed by Oskar Eustis, has a creative team comprising: Clint Ramos, sets; Toni-Leslie James, costumes; Xavier Pierce, lighting; Lucy Mackinnon, projections; and Dan Moses Schreier, sound. Live Design’s coverage of this powerful production, whose cast of four features Daveed Diggs of Hamilton fame, starts with a look at the sound design.
For Schreier, the biggest challenge was the bowling alley, as yes, there is actually a simulation of one on stage. “Clint had the ingenious idea that the bowling alley on stage would be created by the actors rolling the bowling balls at full speed into a ‘ball catch’ at the downstage end of the three quarters thrust stage. The thrust stage in the Anspacher Theater is very short, so I had to create the illusion sonically that the ball was actually rolling down the 60' bowling alley lane and then hitting 10 bowling pins,” says the sound designer.
Here is a short video of the first test:
“What we discovered on this test,” explains Schreier, “is that we needed to muffle the bowling ball hitting the back wall of the ‘catch’ to make the illusion of the ball rolling down 60' believable. After many experiments, we discovered that sand bags were the most effective way to muffle the ball coming to a stop.”
Schreier then went to a bowling alley to record the sounds of the ball hitting the lane, rolling down the lane, a gutter ball, a spare, and a strike.
“The final part of the equation was getting the speaker placement right to create the motion of the ball moving through space and hitting the imaginary bowling pins,” he says. “This was done by starting with the sound in speakers upstage, to speakers in the ‘bowling catch’, to speakers deep in the voms. That way, with the recordings made in the bowling alley, I was able to create the sound of the bowling ball moving through space and hitting the bowling pins.”
Here is the speaker section of the System Flow Chart for White Noise:
The sound design for the bowling alley is quite convincing, and with Mackinnon’s video screens indicating strike after strike as Digg’s character tries to bowl a perfect game, you are sitting on the edge of your seat in suspense!
Sound gear list, provided by Masque Sound:
Yamaha CL5 console
18 Meyer UPM-1P speakers
10 Meyer UPA speakers
2 Meyer UPJuniors
2 Meyer 650-P subwoofers
2 Meyer Galileo 616
10 DPA 6024 microphones with boundary mounts
4 AKG C747 Shotgun condenser microphones
2 Mac mini’s with QLab (redundant)
2 Lexicon PCM91 reverb units