University of Oklahoma Weitzenhoffer School of Musical Theatre

Elsie C. Brackett Theatre

April 28 – May 6, 2017

Directed by:  Lyn Cramer

Scenic Designer:  Jon Young

Costume Designer:  Lloyd Cracknell

Lighting Designer:  Zak Houara

 

 

Curtains is another great ‘play within a play’ musical.  A Boston theatre company is putting on a new musical, ‘Robbin Hood’, when their lead actress is mysteriously killed.  The company has been struggling with the show, and this murder is yet another problem to be faced.  A police lieutenant, Frank Cioffi, arrives to try to solve the mystery, and ends up helping the show as well.  The musical is full of love stories, backstage murders, and some great singing and dancing numbers.

 

My research for this show focused around the Hollywood-esque approach that the musical AND the ‘musical with the musical’ would approach.  A send-up of the great westerns, the sounds and gunshots would all need to be a part of that world.  It was discussed early on as to how the gunshots would be approached.  We began with really movie-like western-style gunshot sounds that fit the action and dancing pretty well but lacked a little oomph.  In the end, we experimented with and used guns with blanks offstage to create the sound.

 

I also got to create several instances of sound redirection.  Offstage cast reinforcing certain songs needed to have their output changed on numerous occasions to reflect the location.  When three of the lead characters are observing the stage deck from a mockup of a catwalk position, we redirected the cast and their orchestra sound to the bottom of the orchestra pit, giving the audible illusion of the cast being far below.  When someone is pushed into the trap room, we redirected the sound of the officers who caught them to a raised speaker just under the deck, making them clearly audible but also changing their locational position.