Sound On Broadway: A Detailed Look At The Audio Designs For Several Top Current Shows

West Side Story
The Palace Theater (cap. 1,743), hosting the latest revival of West Side Story, on the corner of 7th Ave and 47th Street, faces west towards the newly renovated Duffy Square’s discount TKTS booth on the north end of Times Square.

The Palace last hosted Legally Blonde and is one of the grande dames of Broadway. The tall, wide Palace has a 16-row mezzanine halfway over the 1,000-seat orchestra level, with an 8-row balcony above that.

“Tonight,” “America,” “Maria,” “I Feel Pretty” and “Somewhere” – classic songs by Bernstein and Sondheim, yet there’s really only been one revival in a half-century. Arthur Laurents’ urban legend of the Sharks and the Jets is based on Romeo and Juliet, and Jerome Robbins’ choreography asks much of its cast, dancing and singing throughout.

Sound design is by Dan Moses Schreier, who’s won several Drama Desk awards, as well as a first-round Tony nomination for Gypsy last year. His associate designer is David Bullard, with sound equipment supplied by PRG’s Mount Vernon shop.

The sound system has a small Meyer M’elodie center cluster for vocals, with a 700HP subwoofer above. To each side of these for orchestra reinforcement are a CQ-2 with a UPJ underneath for down-fill.

To the sides of the stage proscenium opening both high and low are two sets of a d&b Q-7 for vocals, each beside another UPJ for orchestra, with a single JBL bullet tweeter adding sparkle to vocals up on the mezzanine level. A house truss above the mezzanine supports three Meyer UPJuniors for vocals and a pair of UPJ’s for orchestra.

Over the pit and across the front of the stage are a half-dozen d&b E3 loudspeakers for reinforcing wind instruments, paired with the same number of d&b E0 loudspeakers for vocals. Under the mezzanine are two 8-box rings of d&b E3 loudspeakers, with another ring above the mezzanine under the balcony.

Lucas Indelicato mixes the show’s 42 wireless mics, 42 orchestra inputs and 4 channels of playback on a Studer Vista 5. While other digital consoles could have accommodated this number of inputs, there’s always the chance that the input list can grow during rehearsal.

Lucas Indelicato at his Studer Vista 5 console for West Side Story. (Click to enlarge)

Reasons for the console’s choice were the Vistonics control surface and the Studer sound quality, plus the fact that the last input bay can be isolated for dual operation. Indelicato demonstrated a few of the new V4.2 software’s benefits for theatrical mixing, pointing out actor libraries, and VCA/muting that can be re-assigned cue by cue.

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Playback of the show’s sparse sound effects – sirens and bells, plus the pre-show announcement – comes from figure53’s Mac-based Q-Lab, and in Act II it plays back a mambo through an on-stage Juke Box in Doc’s candy store, recorded by Schreier from 12 orchestra musicians.

The 30-piece orchestra represents nearly every instrument, with only guitar and cello reproduced as keyboard patches. Just like the 1957 out-of-town premiere at Washington, DC’s National Theatre, the two percussionists are in the mezzanine-level opera boxes above and to each side of the stage.

Both percussionists, the pianist and the conductor employ Aviom systems for monitoring, while the other musicians simply listen.

Indelicato is assisted by A2 Sebastian Schulher and deck audio Michelle Hout, who wrangle the Sennheiser SK 5212 miniature body-pack wireless transmitters. The many principals, who dance throughout, are double-mic’ed with both DPA 4061 and the new MKE-1, which Indelicato finds more natural for actors who are already a bit “spitty” and better for softer voices.

The hybrid approach allows provides a backup of another make should one get sweated out.