Cabaret

Sound Designer Texas State University - San Marcos, TX Director Tom Delbello

November 13 - 18, 2018

Book by Joe Masteroff | Music by John Kander | Lyrics by Fred Ebb

"Wilkommen"

Kennedy Center American College

Theatre Festival

Region 6

Excellence in Sound Design

(Barbizon Runner-Up)

February 25 - 28, 2019

Paperwork

CONCEPT

The sound design is centered on the concept that even though the show runs nearly two hours, the expanse of the present is only about two minutes while Cliff is in the train station. The theatre is the Kit Kat Klub and from the moment you walk in you hear the energetic chatter, the drinks from the bar being tossed around, and the excitement that hounds in on you until it is suddenly released with Cliffs entrance. The “show” begins when Cliff is plunged into his memory of the Kit Kat Klub and only resurfaces at the end of the show. Through sound the scene can be shifted from the Klub to the apartments as the Klub scenes are loud and energetic and the apartment scenes are softer and natural with little assistance from the actor’s mics. Throughout the show the audience experiences the train rumbling below them as Cliff makes his way to Berlin, they hear the noise of the club outside of Sally’s dressing room walls, the phones of the club, the travel announcement blaring down the station walls from a single loudspeaker, and eventually the haunting recording of Wilkommen inside of a concentration camp field as the cast is presumed to be sent to the crematorium.

"Tomorrow Belongs To Me (Reprise)"

"Wilkommen"

"Tomorrow Belongs To Me"

"Married"

SOUND AS A STORYTELLER

I always want to push my understanding of sound as a storytelling device and explore why sound is heard from different locations and how that effects the story, I found that by adding numerous subs under the floors of the seating banks created a vibration through the seats and walls of the theatre. The snap of the memories were designed with lighting to drop the audience in and out of the story, the low frequencies would build and build until it would release with a thud as lighting shifted in an instant to start the memory, and then crashing away at the end of Act One to allow for intermission.

"Cabaret"

Act 2, Scene 6

The Finale is felt throughout the theatre due to the structure of the soundscape; mid and high frequency sounds ring around the stage and then sizzle away to allow the Emcee to sing his final song. By using six subs and six surround positions around the audience I was able to create the auditory illusion that the crematorium walls were expanding around the audience, swallowing them into the burning interior.