This recording was a classic cricket ambiance for a scene where Emma recalls her father singing “Taps”. I used the cleanest recording cricket recording I could find which had one cricket much closer to the microphone with a chorus of more crickets in the background. I edited out the background crickets to create the more isolated feeling desired for the seen. I also went through and repositioned the chirps temporally to reduce the liveliness of the recorded cricket as well as redefine the character of the cricket to fit the environment of the play.
This is one of the four sections of the guitar underscoring that was recorded. I recorded it with the guitar’s pickup into a Zoom recorder. I edited it to fit the sound of the live guitar in the theatre.
Grandma Gatewood took a walk
Florida Studio Theatre, Bowne Lab
Feb. 6 – Mar. 1 2026
Director: Nancy Rominger
Costume Design: Julia Hornsby
Props Designer: Audrey Smith
Lighting Design: Kate Landry
Sound Design: Nicholas Ryan
Fight Choreographer: Brianna McVaugh
Dialect Coach: Paul Meier
Photos: Emiliano Mejias
This show depicts the life and journey of Emma Gatewood, the first woman to solo thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. It is a beautifully written story, and I was glad to be able to work on Florida Studio Theatre’s production of the show. The show has a two-person cast with Emma constantly on stage with the second actor filling in to play the multiplicity of other roles.
The director and I wanted underscoring for various parts of the play, and Ryan G. Dunkin, who played the second actor, played guitar, so the choice was to have him do the underscoring live on stage. Ryan composed the music himself. While this worked for the majority of cases, there were a few times where we wanted underscoring, but Ryan had too quick a costume change or was in the scene to allow him to play. These sections were recorded to enable the underscoring in those sections as well. I placed a special close where Ryan was positioned for the underscoring, to keep the recorded underscoring the same spatial quality. The speaker position had significant high frequency absorption, and the low end could reach the audience more promiently. To counter those effects, I had to significantly boost the upper end of the recording to keep the same sound.
Nicholas Ryan 