The Tell Tale Heart: An adventure in theatre sound design

Photo: Daniel Albanese

A couple of months ago (back when it was shorts and t-shirt weather) I visited the wonderful Denizen Theatre in New Paltz to see the final performance of their summer production ‘Grounded’.

As I chatted with the Artistic Director after the show we discovered we had lots in common, including having lived in uptown Manhattan, recently relocated to the Hudson Valley, and most of all, shared an affection for our trusty Subaru Foresters.

Whether it was this, or my accent I’ll never know. But either way, he asked me if I’d like to sound design the next production at the Denizen, and I replied with a hearty ‘yes, but I’ve never used Q-Lab before’.

A handful of YouTube videos, and a bunch of atmospheric time stretched creaks later, and the show has opened! ‘The Tell Tale Heart’ is a stage production of the short story by Edgar Allen Poe, performed by the excellent Sean Meehan (The Normal Heart, Madame Secretary).

Designing the atmospherics for this piece was an adventure in found sounds and processing (thank you Izotope). Plus I got to learn how to program a new bit of software!

The show runs Thurs-Sun from now until the end of October. For more info and tickets head over here.

The Peculiar Tale....

Sometimes things just need a change, and when my collaborators and I were asked by a prominent theatre if we’d mind changing the title of our show we were all for it. Cue a spreadsheet of brainstorming alternate titles for the musical formerly known as ‘The Suicide Club’.

After much discussion we settled on this natty little number:

“THE PECULIAR TALE OF THE PRINCE OF BOHEMIA AND THE SOCIETY OF DESPERATE VICTORIANS”

As of now we’re referring to it as simply ‘Peculiar Tale’, or sometimes just ‘PT’ if we’re feeling lazy.

As to the why’s and the who’s behind the change, look out for a big announcement in the New Year!

Snow Way Out

Spring may be creeping it's way into our lives here in NYC, but snow is still at the forefront of my writing. 'Snow Way Out', a new 4-person Christmas musical comedy I'm working on has a table-read coming up on April 4th. There's a new draft of the script (with a few surprising new elements), read by Broadway and Off-Broadway actors, along with some brand new songs. I'm excited to see how it all the new material fits together! Many thanks to CAP 21 for hosting and organizing this reading.