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The Rasmuson Individual Artist Award
Lucy Peckham, Sound Designer
“Bringing It Home”
Project Grant Report #4 - Summary Report
June 2019
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and now the reckoning
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The one requirement of receiving a Rasmuson Individual Artist Award is that at the end of the grant year (June 1, 2018—May 31, 2019) a grantee must submit a report of what they did with the grant.
I knew that if I waited until the end of the year, it would be very difficult to figure out a way to encapsulate in a short report. Hence there are three preceding reports still available to read via my website homepage (and linked to in the report which follows here). I’ll address each of my stated goals in turn:
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Attend the Theatrical Sound Designers and Composers Association (TSDCA) Annual Meeting in NYC to meet and talk with my professional compatriots, to hear what’s going on in the larger world of theatre sound.
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 Accomplished: And there I found my Ableton mentor (see Goal #2), sound designer/composer/professional DJ Mikhail (Misha) Fiksel. See Rasmuson Report #1.
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Find a mentor in the use of a computer program called Ableton Live as a sound design medium integrated with QLab, a cue-triggering program in wide use.
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Accomplished: In November, I spent five days with Misha studying Ableton Live, and I was able to use the program immediately to create cues in QLab for the Perseverance Theatre world premiere production of Franklin. I need more training, and fellow Rasmuson recipient Rick Zelinsky has offered to guide me further. See Rasmuson Report #2.
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Find a mentor who is a Broadway, Off-Broadway, or major League of Resident Theatres (LORT) theatre front-of-house (FOH) Mixer, to shadow and observe at work, see how a major musical is set up on a “big” FOH mixer, and to be introduced to the major networking systems for immersive sound programming, Dante and D-Mitri.
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 Partially accomplished. Details in the latter part of this report.
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Attend the United States Institute of Theatre Technology (USITT) Conference next March, 2019, to see all the equipment on display and to attend all the sound workshops.
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Accomplished. Details in the latter part of this report.
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Bring trainers from Figure 53, the creators of Qlab, to Anchorage for an intensive three-day training program in all aspects of Qlab. It will be made available to all interested technical theatre folk in Alaska, whether or not they are “professionals,” with the goal of raising the skill and commensurately the artistic capabilities of technical theatre all over the state.
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Accomplished: Twenty four students—representing Ketchikan, Juneau, Valdez, Kodiak, Homer, Anchorage, the Mat-Su, and Seattle—from Perseverance Theatre, Cyrano’s Theatre Company, Anchorage Community Theatre, University of Alaska Anchorage’s Theatre Department, First City Players, Glenn Massey Theater, Toss Pot Productions, Blue Chair Productions, TBA Theatre, Kodiak High School, Valdez Civic Center, IATSE Local #918, Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, and the Alaska Independent Musicians Initiative (AKIMI), attended the three-day class! See Rasmuson Report #3.
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There was a sixth, “silent” goal as well, and that was to see as much professional theatre as I possibly could during my grant year. Here is a list of the twenty-five productions I attended during my grant year.
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All of these shows had exceptional sound designs ranging from exquisitely sparse and simple to nonstop, deeply integrated sound and music. I learn best by listening….
My favorite sound designs of this year?
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so…what happened in Q4?
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Too much to detail…. I was on the road from March 9 to April 3, and again June 4 to 11 for the final portion of the grant project. I did all that was planned and more. I met, observed, and was educated by some very skilled theatre sound artists and learned a hard personal lesson or three along the way.
Regarding Goal #3 only partially achieved: I shadowed three Front-of-House (FOH) engineers—one from a symphony hall, one from a Cirque du Soleil touring production, and one from a Broadway musical—but their production schedules and the scale of their systems made it difficult to get beyond the briefest overviews in each case.
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I traveled to Atlanta for a week with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) shepherded by FOH engineer Dave Bath. Dave showed me two large house consoles, the Digidesign Venue Profile and the Yamaha M7CL, but it was a very busy week. In addition to the regular symphony rehearsals, there was a Little Feat concert and three concerts for youth—one of which was held a couple hours outside of Atlanta, so we all packed up one morning and went “on the road” and back in one day. There were two long rehearsals and two performances of the entire score of The Empire Strikes Back with the film. By the way, QLab was used both to trigger all the movie tracks for the orchestra and to keep the conductor in time with the film. It was a fascinating use of the program!
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The four days I spent with Cirque du Soleil’s wonderful sound team on Corteo, in Los Angeles, gave me the chance to see the Soundcraft VI3000 console in use and the integration of many complex systems including QLab and Ableton Live. Describing the Cirque group as a family is not an exaggeration. I will always be grateful to my Whitman College classmate Frank Lott, Corteo Company Manager, for arranging this unique opportunity.
Christian Peterson is Head of Sound. Davey Waltman is Asst. Head of Sound, Dylan Brownfield is the Sound Technician, and Charlie Scheer was the Sound Fly-In. I shadowed all of them in turn over four days. Their touring sound system was very complex, designed just for that show. I managed to mostly come to grips with the signal path, and got a pretty good grasp of the RF (wireless mics) track. Thank you, gentlemen of Corteo, for your patience.
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I spent two days in New York City with the Broadway show Come From Away. The A1 (the IATSE designation for Audio Engineer), Chris Luessmann, has three brief moments where he can take his hands off the console long enough to take a drink of water. He ran the show on an Avid Venue S6L, and his performance was amazing.
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Then, I had my eyes opened to the specificity of the A2’s role thanks to Michael “Fodder” Carrico’s teaching. The detailed preparation of the mics for the actors and musicians in the show, the care and tracking of all the RF gear and batteries, and the appearance, function, and performer comfort of the wireless and wired mics and in-ear monitors all falls to the A2 (the IATSE designation for Assistant Audio Engineer).
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I was able to identify five other different consoles in the course of the year, but that’s all. I know little more than I did a year ago about large consoles, and I learned nothing more about Dante and D-Mitri, except that I will need considerably more than a couple hours and a brief tour to get comfortable on any console or system I saw. Dante and D-Mitri cannot be explained (along with everything else) in the time given.
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Regarding Goal #4: From March 18 to 23, I was in Louisville, Kentucky, at the USITT conference. I attended classes or moderated discussions all day, every day. Each class had value and interest, and the instructors were excited to share information.
As an example (though not directly related to sound), one of the courses was a moderated discussion of theatre design and construction by a panel of project managers. Since I’m presently working with the Church of Love remodel project here in Anchorage, and I still hope for a new or redesigned venue for Perseverance Theatre, I find building design fascinating.
Another was a brilliant class on ear physiology, hearing protection, and in-ear monitors that I will be trying to share with everyone I know. It is never too early to start protecting your ears!
A fifth report, detailing the final quarter—including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the USITT conference, Corteo, the Ivy Hall Studio, Come From Away, and the Collaborator Party—will follow…eventually.
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Getting first-hand instruction at the QLab class in Anchorage · February 2019
Thank you, thank you, thank you to the Rasmuson Foundation for the opportunity, the artistic affirmation, and the support provided by the Project Grant. The experience has truly been life-changing.
Sincerely,
Lucy Peckham
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