Day 6: Tech Day 2!

After a hot hot hot last week, it was great to wake up to a cooler day.  L and I had to be at the theatre by 9 for some notes (L) and a zoom meeting (me), but we had time to grab a coffee before heading into the theatre.  W, our video designer and general tech wizard, was in with his assistant working on content, and we had a nice few hours getting stuff together while the actors worked in a rehearsal hall.  

The view off the rooftop patio at the theatre.

After a few hours, L and I grabbed a falafel before corralling all the artists into the space to start tech for Interview the Dead.  Lunch was a falafel wrap, and we did a bit of shopping at the Waterloo market.  After a blistering week in Amsterdam, today was glorious.  It was breezy and cool, and it was refreshing to walk down the street without my shirt sticking to my back.

Our poster, augmented with pushpins.

Interview the Dead is an improvisatory show.  Each of the actors has done extensive research on a number of well-known dead people (Omar Sharif, Saddam Hussein, Amy Winehouse, Toni Morrison, Karl Marx, etc.), and the audience has, for a few hours, the opportunity to ask them any questions they'd like.  The actors respond in character, and often engage in dialogue with each other. Because the text is entirely improvised, the design needs to be hyper-flexible, so instead of a traditional linear tech, L and I played around with design ideas while the actors worked in the space.  

M designed the sound system and was helping me solve a problem.

The cast on a five.

After tech, L and I had a few hours before we had to be back at the theatre, so we walked around town for a bit on a photo safari.  

At 6, L and I had a talk with the first- and second- year tech/design students about the work that we were doing.  L asked them all to introduce themselves and give their areas of focus.  All were lights and/or video.  None were specifically interested in sound.  We talked about the design process for the shows, and then we talked about some of the tech we're using.  I've got a lot of new-to-me stuff going on - SPAT Revolution, Leap Motion 2, Sound Particles.  I got to demo the tools and talk about how I applied them to the show. Along the way, I talked about Wave Field Synthesis, Granular Synthesis, Open Sound Control, Variable Beam Amplitude Panning, and a few other ideas.  It was a lot of fun!  L talked about his approach, and we demonstrated the show control connectivity and the whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts power of good design.

Afterwards, dinner at an italian restaurant that would be considered excellent in LA, but was disappointing for how close it is to Italy.  Oh well.