Inspired by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s Love Has Come For You and playing at the San Diego Old Globe Theatre, new American musical Bright Star is a story of ‘enduring love, family ties and the light of forgiveness that shines from a bright star’. It is also the latest instalment in Masque Sound’s work in theatrical sound. Its world premiere saw Masque Sound called in by sound designer Nevin Steinberg to provide dynamic custom audio equipment package.
‘Working with such legendary and talented artists, there was a lot of pressure to deliver something special in the sound design that would capture the excitement of Steve and Edie’s latest creative venture,’ he says. ‘The show’s music is rooted in bluegrass, which isn’t typical for a theatre setting, so I knew that the sound system couldn’t be typical either. The show called for something with incredible warmth and high resolution in order to properly convey this music to the audience, which proved to be one of the biggest challenges.’
Key to overcoming this challenge was selecting the loudspeaker system: ‘When choosing a loudspeaker system, it was important to take into account the different brands of speaker systems currently on the market and the pros and cons of each when fitted into the Old Globe Theatre’s specific layout,’ Steinberg says.
‘Alcons Audio is one of the only companies to have successfully incorporated ribbon drivers into its line array systems, which is an incredible feat,’ he continues. ‘The resolution is very high and, overall, the speakers help to raise the quality we can expect of the audio re-production. Though Alcons Audio is a relative newcomer to the theatre market, once I connected the company with Masque Sound, the team there made sure that the Alcons Audio system was prepped in the shop to fit seamlessly with the rest of my custom audio equipment package.’
Aside from the intricacies of the show’s music compositions, the split orchestra also posed a challenge. Bright Star’s orchestra is composed of nine musicians – five play acoustic instruments onstage, while an additional four play off-stage. To make matters more complicated, the musicians onstage perform on a moving platform. The staging and movement prevented the use of any trailing cable, so the sound system – including all instrumentation, amplification and monitoring components – had to be wireless. Furthermore, IEMs and an Aviom system were required to synthesise the remote musicians and onstage orchestra into one, coherent group.
Masque Sound chose eight channels of Sennheiser Digital 9000 wireless mic systems: ‘The Sennheiser 9000 has been a game changer,’ says Steinberg. ‘It sounds so good, we forget that it’s wireless. While working on the designing the show, I was keen to try some other new equipment, which is why I was thrilled when Masque Sound connected me to K-array, which supplied me with a speaker system for stage monitoring.
‘I had been enthusiastic about their products for just such an application. Masque Sound has always bent over backwards to help me forge relationships with new manufacturers and keep me abreast of the latest audio equipment developments. This is a perfect example of a situation in which I had a wish list and Masque Sound helped turn those wishes into reality.’
Additionally, Masque Sound supplied a DiGiCo SD10T digital mixing console, DPA 4011 mics for the remote orchestra, additional Sennheiser wireless systems and DPA lavalier mics for the cast and Shure UHF-R wireless mic systems for a few of the instruments on the bandstand, as well as Sennheiser in-ear monitors.
‘Masque Sound is part of a great audio team assembled for this production, which includes our mixing engineer, Scott Sanders, and my long-time associate, Jason Crystal, who each played an integral part in ensuring the show’s success,’ says Steinberg. ‘And the staff and crew at the Old Globe Theatre have been great to work with throughout this journey. I can’t wait to see what happens next with this beautiful show.’
