Sarah Ruhl’s The Oldest Boy tells the story of Tenzin, the toddler son of an American woman and a Tibetan man who is the reincarnation of a high Buddhist teacher.
Designing the sound and the audio system to deliver it at its Lincoln Center Theater’s Mitzi E Newhouse Theater 3 premiere posed its own challenges to Sound Designer Darron L West and New Jersey-based theatrical sound specialist Masque Sound. The first was the design of the stage itself...
‘The stage is a really beautiful, wooden formal circle in the middle of the theatre, and in designing the sound I wanted to be able to create layers from the centre out,’ says West. ‘We placed an enormous number of speakers in the theatre to accomplish this, which gave us the added ability of being able to move the majority of the sounds around the room with ease. It was all about radiating the sound from the centre out, and the system Masque Sound provided allowed us to achieve our goal.’
For West, associate Charles Coes and assistant Beth Lake, the greatest challenge was with the delicate nature of the music. Since the musical numbers are all composed on Tibetan instruments, such as bowls and tone bells, with a single, live musician performing onstage, the sound designers had to find a way to integrate all of these understated instruments to work inside the system’s surround.
‘We designed the system in rings,’ West explains. ‘There is a centre system that only outlines the edge of the round stage, which means that the musician can be performing in the middle of the stage and get a lot of gain before feedback on his microphone. Most of the music in this show is multichannel, so the audience is almost sitting in a bowl with all of these layers going on behind them that are creating a whirlwind of surround soundscapes. The show features beautiful scenic changes and the sound layers help shape the story for our audience, not only in terms of where it is going, but where it is ultimately headed.’
For this, Masque Sound provided West with a large Meyer Sound speaker package, which included UPA-1P loudspeakers for the mains, a variety of UPMs for fills, UPJ-1Ps for the centre ring and USW-1P subwoofers.
‘It’s about the clarity at the top end,’ says West. ‘With musicians loudly playing these pure tone bells and bowls to fill up the room, it is important to rely on a fast speaker that boasts a lot of top end. To get the dynamic range we needed in the show, the Meyer rig was the only way to go for us. There was no question as to what we wanted to use, and we were very happy that Masque Sound was able to provide it.’
West also needed a mixing with as much flexibility as possible, which he found in the Yamaha DM1k, which allowed the use Madi to route multiple outputs with separate QLab channels detailing the soundscape. For microphones, he used a selection DPA 4021s and 4022s, as well as a DPA 4061, which is worn on the head of the musician playing the traditional Tibetan nylon stringed instrument.
‘We have such a long relationship with Masque Sound, and I know that I am in such good hands when I am working with them and never have to worry about anything,’ concludes West. ‘With this show in particular, there were massive amounts of changes. It’s a world premiere with a lot of different levels and moving parts. To not have to worry about the implementation of the sound system was just fantastic. Masque Sound also provided its frequency coordination services, which is another item I can check off my list and not even have to worry about. In addition, our mixer at Lincoln Center, Stephen Bettridge, did an amazing job in helping this all come together.’
