Hands up is a collection of 6 monologues detailing personal experiences of police brutality in the lives of African Americans. I was very eager to be a part of this project especially in the wake of so many tragedies. When I started this project I knew that music would play an integral role in reinforcing the emotional arc of the play so I wanted to pull very specific songs to speak to the experiences African americans face. I also wanted pre show to have moments of education for people who were new to both Hip Hop and #blacklivesmatter issues. I have included a link that includes the sound bytes That the pre show was built from. 

Click here to listen to the Hands Up Playlist

Directed by Dawn Monique Williams
Produced by Profile Theater Co
2016
​Sound design

Antigone Project is a collection of five plays that have themes based on the Greek classic Antigone. Since each play took place in a different setting, the sound needed to find a way to link all the plays without distracting too much from each individual story. The idea i came up with was to create a "Time Machine" that transports the audience into each setting. This project was a great opportunity to explore "cinematic sound" in live production which is something that I love to do. 

Worst than Tigers was an exciting opportunity to collaborate with several alumni from my alma mater on a new play. This play centers on a couple that seems to be going through some marital problems that only intensify on the arrival of a man eating tiger. As a Sound  Designer this meant that I had to truthfully create the presence of a large tiger which s never seen. To begin I recorded a large dog that had a vicious growl. I then pitched shifted the growl to match several sound bites of tigers I had in my arsenal. then it was a matter of working with the director Emily Penick to figure out what the tiger was "saying". I wanted the tiger to seem scary but also a tad absurd. In this world it is more then a tiger it  is a monster that has the unique ability to draw its victims in through fascination. I also worked with composer Derek Graham to define several themes that could help move us through the play with out losing to much of the humor subtly hidden in the text. Most music choice were intentionally placed to juxtapose the action so that the audience doesn't get too caught in the mellow drama and leave the theater depressed. In all I really liked the way this play came together and am proud to be one of the first designers to tackle this "beast".

Contigo pan y cebolla is an all spanish speaking play presented by Milagro a Latino theater company. This play was a lot of fun to work on because it tested my knowledge of spanish and allowed me to deeply investigate Cuban life and specifically Cuban life in the 1950's. For this design I focused on making the radio the center-piece of the design with more than two thirds of an extensive cue list playing through a hidden practical in the body of a classic tuner radio. It not only played music but had a life of its own including clicks, pops, buzzing and sound bites for when it powered on and off. The music involved immense research as it had to be specific not only to the period but to Cuba. This meant I had to know what cubans wanted to hear but also what they were allowed to hear during the regime transition of the late 50's. An iconic moment in this play was the death of Fefa the elderly mother in law. I scored this using a series of ambient noises including a stretched out choral arrangement hidden in the back of a series of funeral bells and ghostly whispers. the show included a center cluster (mono) two practicals (the radio and another behind the set) and a perimeter around the audience representing outside.

I wanted to push the students to try something new with this play so throughout our production meetings we brainstormed a bunch of ideas to bring the island to life. One of the concepts that we wanted to try was to patch christmas lights into the lighting console and experiment with "lightning effects" This idea proved to be pretty successful  and looked really cool once we added in the color gels and dropped the muslin cloth to project on. We also decorated the whole space with a variety of "plants" and streamers so that the audience was a part of the world of the play. Ultimately I think that this design ended up really coming together and really gave the students a chance to be more creative. 

Directed by Lauren Hanover
Produced by Profile Theater 
2015
Sound Design
​*new work

This play was fun because it went back and forth between being realistic and stylized. My job was to marry the two worlds in a way that wouldn't be jarring to the audience. The play focuses on Olga Knipper wife of Anton Chekov and tells her story of struggling to find identity as a brilliant actress in the shadow of her marriage. the music in the show consisted of classic Russian folk and I used a subtle heartbeat, that changed pace frequently, as a through line to accent Olga's emotional journey. 

The wittiness and pace of "Earnest" create a comic environment familiar to our modern day sitcoms. To keep the audience engaged in the lofty text I decided to adapt a stylistic "sitcom" approach. This created an immediate sense of familiarity with the play and allows the actors to play the joke more stylistically as well. A couple sound elements used to bring out the humor of the play were a theme song like that of a TV show and a laugh track that played on a characters first entrance. The laugh track also supported the audience laughter as a hot key.  ​

Fiddler on a Roof was an opportunity to experiment with the mixture of sound and lighting design. I wanted to create a set that would be dynamic enough to capture the many different settings and moments of the play. Using Muslin I create a large Framed "Canvas" and built a two dimensional masonite structure and attached it to the back of the frame. The effect is when projected from the back the image of a house appear and when the back light is out we have a flat surface to project on from the front. using the rgb spectrum on the front back and cyc, I had full control of which colors appeared where and when. ​

This Play takes place in South Africa, so I used south african music to both score the piece and punctuate particular scenes. This particular clip begins with a dance piece on stage which fades into a narration from the protagonist. As this fade happens the environment surrounding the audience changes to the ambience of a South African bar to prepare for the actors back of the house entrance for the next scene. ​