This is one of the sequences of shots and Rhett barking that interrupts the first scene. All of the barking and shots were from a speaker placed on SL to position the sound in the space.
This cue is when Rhett finally escapes to pursue his torment. I decreased the gain as well as reducing higher frequencies as Rhett gets further away. This was the closing cue to the scene which led into music to cover the costume changes.
This is the DJ speech starting the scene on the radio. The radio cues played from a speaker located directly below the radio itself.
Steel Magnolias
Gettysburg College Theatre Department, Majestic Theatre
Feb. 29-Mar. 3, 2024
Director: Catherine Blaine
Scenic Design: Eric Berninghausen
Costume Design: Juls Buehrer
Lighting Design: Jonathan Stiles
Sound Design: Nicholas Ryan
Photos: Eric Lippe & Grace Jurchak
I served as the sound designer for this production. This production used localized sound for many of the cues. I only had access to the free version of QLab, so the routing of the localized sounds was a bit complicated. Since the audio routing of QLab can’t be edited in the free version, I had to use both an aux cable and a USB cable to get enough channels and use each cable for two locations. The up-stage speaker would only be used in the first scene, so I used the aux cable to carry that signal and the House signal. The board operator had to crossfade between the Mains and the Aux 1 mix at the end of the first scene, but otherwise that cable would only be used for the House.
Due to the default patching of the USB, I could only use two of the possible channels on it from QLab. One channel carried the signal for the phone speaker and the other for the radio. The other complicated aspect of this signal was that there was not sufficient XLR to get to both speakers independently. Kline has two return lines built in; one was used for the upstage speaker. I used the other line to carry both the phone and radio and then split it into the left/right channels with a DI box. The speaker for the phone was a Dell A215 which was the only speaker I could access beyond the two Behringer monitors. Since it only had to do the phone ringing, it was fine for its purposes. To give it better sound through the flat, I cut out a small hole in the luan and covered it with cheesecloth and painted it over.
While an extremely janky set-up, the system worked well enough for the show. The radio and scene transitions made up the majority of the sound cues. The scene transitions were framed as if the music was coming from the radio initially before coming up to the full House. The music was contemporary to the show and largely followed the course of Shelby’s health over the show.
Nicholas Ryan 