Re-imagining Puccini’s La Bohème for a new audience, the Broadway production Rent follows a year in the lives of seven artists struggling to follow their dreams. Twenty years since its debut, the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning masterpiece is still selling out theatres around the world. The anniversary of the show began its run in September 2016 and carries with it an L-Acoustics sound system that delivers the power of its music while keeping touring logistics and costs at a minimum.
According to Masque Sound Associate Sound Designer Mike Tracey, the touring system for the show comprises two main left/right towers of 11 Kara enclosures per side, as well as two SB18 subwoofers per side, arrayed in a cardioid configuration. Discreet coaxial 5XT speakers provide front fill, while two X12 coaxials provide down fill.
This is all powered by six L-Acoustics LA8 amplified controllers in an LA-Rak and controlled via an LA Network Manager. Two spare LA8s are also in the rack but, underscoring their reliability, have yet to be used. Masque Sound, which also provided a Yamaha CL5 console for front of house, is the sound-reinforcement provider for the show.
‘Rent is a rock musical, and it really needs a rock touring sound system, and that’s what the L-Acoustics Kara gives us,’ says Tracey, who has also worked on other successful touring and Broadway productions, including Book of Mormon, Cabaret and War Paint The Musical. ‘The Kara is a compact, lightweight box but it can really pump out the sound. And the 5XT boxes are amazing – I don’t know why anyone would use anything else for front fills.’
Tracey drew up the system design in L-Acoustics’ Soundvision 3D modelling software using his team’s knowledge of the theatres that are on the tour itinerary. ‘We have a good understanding of the baseline of the venues we’re going to, and Soundvision let us design a system that would work for all of them and was also as lightweight to carry as possible, which makes a big difference in costs,’ he explains. ‘The Kara boxes are about 50lb each and put out a huge amount of power for their size and weight. And they’re very easy to fly.’
He is also a fan of L-Acoustics’ technical support. ‘They are just great–we had Jesse Stevens with us for the final tuning of the system,’ he says. ‘For a touring show, it’s a huge confidence builder to know that anything you need is just a phone call away.’
Mike Rukstad, the show’s FOH mixer and head of audio, says the Kara system regards Rent as a rock concert as well as a theatrical show. ‘We’re playing some pretty big houses – three and four thousand seats – and no matter how big the theatre or how it’s configured, Kara can fill it,’ he says from the 2,700-seat Hollywood Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles. ‘I can always get the vocals above the band, and we have a pretty loud drummer.’
Rukstad, who has also mixed Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story and Bullets Over Broadway on tour, says the L-Acoustics system is a high-fidelity experience for theatregoers. ‘It’s really all about the power and the clarity,’ he says. ‘It sounds good. There’s no distortion, nothing that distracts from the music.’
