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.