When first published in 1967, SE Hinton’s coming-of-age novel, The Outsiders, struck a chord with readers with its tale of social and familial upheaval, articulated by an author who was, herself, a teenager. Sixteen years later, Francis Ford Coppola brought the story to the silver screen with a cast full of young actors that would all go on to become Hollywood A-listers. Now, The Outsiders running as a critically acclaimed Broadway musical with immersive L-ISA sound – the NYC Theater District’s first L-Acoustics L Series loudspeaker deployment.
‘People’s expectations of the aural experience in a performance have changed, and I think it’s up to theatre artists to stay in front of that,’ says David Strang, VP of Audio Sales for PRG, who supplied the L-Acoustics systems for the new production. ‘This isn’t a movie that you’ll get to watch at home later – it’s live theatre – and this new production of The Outsiders truly draws you into the story.’
Like many Broadway houses, the Bernard B Jacobs Theatre in Times Square was once a vaudeville venue: ‘Acoustics are always a big issue when it comes to Broadway houses, so we spent a lot of time figuring out how to deal with,’ says Cody Spencer. ‘It’s a lot of trial and error with these big old vaudeville houses, because before there was amplification, they just spoke loudly, and you could hear them everywhere – and that’s very counterintuitive to what we do with loudspeakers. L-Acoustics is a great choice even for a conventional system design, but we wanted to do something special and engaging with this show.’
Consequently, Spencer and his team, including L-ISA programmer Stephen Jensen, production audio lead Mike Tracy, and FOH engineer Heather Augustine, went all in on immersive sound.
‘The reason that I chose to use L-ISA is because early on, in communication with my director, music department, and choreography team, we wanted the audience to be encompassed by the sound. With much of the show, the audience is “inside” the actors’ heads. Using L-ISA, we’re able to get people feeling the sound from all around them at all times. Early on in the show, for instance, our lead character gets kicked in the face, and you can hear the kick, but then you also hear his ears ringing – not just in front of you but all around you. Those kinds of effects help to make you feel like you’re actually part of his world.’
Spencer says L-ISA also enhances the show’s minimalist live music, an Americana-esque, mostly acoustical ensemble: ‘In a lot of shows these days, the music is very processed, but we wanted it to be as if you’re listening to this band play in the room with you. We were able to easily do that with L-ISA by separating the band in the system, to attain the spatial sound we’re looking for.’
Augustine’s monitoring array at FOH is its own mini-immersive environment. ‘She’s in the middle of the house mixing on X8 spatial fills that are right in front of her, and then for surround, she’s got more X8 around her to the sides and behind,’ Spencer says. ‘It mimics the larger arrays that the audience is hearing.’
The front array of the system, for orchestra and front mezzanine seating, comprises five Scene hangs of the new long-throw L-Acoustics L2D arrays, spaced across the top of the proscenium. ‘The Outsiders represents Broadway’s first use of L Series, and the enclosures nicely helped resolve an early design challenge for us,’ Spencer notes. ‘Initially, I wasn’t convinced that we needed them on this show. However, once I learned how far out we had to move the front-of-house speaker points to account for the rain curtain and other effects that needed to be downstage of the proscenium, I plugged them into our Soundvision model and quickly found that L2D gave us three more rows of coverage in front of the orchestra over traditional line arrays. At that point, L Series was the clear winner for providing better immersive coverage to more of the room’s “money seats”.’
Two centrally flown sub arrays of three KS21 each are bolstered by two more KS21 positioned left and right, under the stage. The balcony delay system features five Scene arrays of two A15 Focus flanking Extension arrays of two A15 Wide. Seven spatial X8 mounted across the face of the stage serve as front fill for main-floor seats, and various combinations of X12, X8, and 5XT are deployed as other fill, as needed. A combination of LA7.16, LA12X, and LA4X amplified controllers drive the system.
‘We also have a row of compact 5XT speakers for the middle of the orchestra that helps get the high end to the very front of the overhang,’ he says, ‘and then another row of X8 as spatial fills to fill in the back of the orchestra underneath the overhang.’ The main system’s surround arrays utilize a combination of X8 and A10 enclosures, while the balcony surrounds are four Syva, deployed two per side, he adds.
‘The monitoring system on stage for this show is bigger than most entire house PA systems in typical Broadway theatres,’ Spencer adds of the six X12 flown three per side as stage side fill, six X12 in two rows of three as overheads, ten X4i across stage lip firing stage-ward, for downstage-fill, one X8 on each side of the proscenium arch firing toward centre-stage as proscenium fill, and a dozen 5XT in two rows of six as under-platform monitors.
‘When you only have a few loudspeakers onstage and the actors are all the way downstage, fostering that connection can be quite a challenge. So we extensively covered the stage to make sure that wherever the actors were, we could turn up various voices or instruments in specific locations to give them exactly what they needed in those positions. And the compact X Series systems very nicely give us the control we were looking for.’
The system is managed by a redundant pair of L-ISA Processor II, and the entire set-up relies on Milan-AVB for networked routing. ‘It makes life so much easier being able to grab streams and not have to run a whole bunch of copper. Some of our amps are up in a jump that is 60ft in the air, and the other half of our amps are downstairs. From the amp room we were able to send fibre everywhere, allowing us to grab networks from anywhere and easily pick up speakers, making adjustments or changes to the system fast and simple.’
The Outsiders reflects how Broadway is investing more deeply in immersive sound for its shows. ‘We’ve been doing different versions of surround-type sound in theaters and on Broadway for years, but the new tools, including L-ISA, make that a whole lot easier and a lot more fun in terms of what you can do with image manipulation,’ says Strang. ‘It used to be a lot more difficult when you were doing it yourself with pan and delay parameters programed into a digital console. L-ISA unlocks creativity for sound designers, mix engineers, and artists.’
More: www.prg.com
