Theatre Of Sound

Covering every phase of a theatrical production, this fourth edition of Sound and Music for the Theatre traces the process of sound design from initial concept through implementation in actual performances. The book discusses the early evolution of sound design and how it supports the play, from researching sources for music and effects, to negotiating a contract. It shows you how to organize the construction of the sound design elements, how the designer functions in a rehearsal, and how to set up and train an operator to run sound equipment. This instructive information is interspersed with ‘war stores’ describing real-life problems with solutions that you can apply in your own work, whether you’re a sound designer, composer, or sound operator.

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

New insight into the theatrical use of sound in avant-garde and postdramatic performance.

This book is a timely contribution to the emerging field of the aurality of theatre and looks in particular at the interrogation and problematisation of theatre sound(s). Both approaches are represented in the idea of ‘noise’ which we understand both as a concrete sonic entity and a metaphor or theoretical (sometimes even ideological) thrust. Theatre provides a unique habitat for noise. It is a place where friction can be thematised, explored playfully, even indulged in: friction between signal and receiver, between sound and meaning, between eye and ear, between silence and utterance, between hearing and listening. In an aesthetic world dominated by aesthetic redundancy and ‘aerodynamic’ signs, theatre noise recalls the aesthetic and political power of the grain of performance. ‘Theatre noise’ is a new term which captures a contemporary, agitatory acoustic aesthetic. It expresses the innate theatricality of sound design and performance, articulates the reach of auditory spaces, the art of vocality, the complexity of acts of audience, the political in produced noises. Indeed, one of the key contentions of this book is that noise, in most cases, is to be understood as a plural, as a composite of different noises, as layers or waves of noises. Facing a plethora of possible noises in performance and theatre we sought to collocate a wide range of notions of and approaches to ‘noise’ in this book – by no means an exhaustive list of possible readings and understandings, but a starting point from which scholarship, like sound, could travel in many directions.

“The closest thing that the American theater currently has to a David Foster Wallace, Rapp can give you the head rush of sophisticated literary allusion and unreliable narrative trickery à la Dostoevsky, and yet talk of Plano, Illinois, and let you know that he knows exactly how it feels…A gripping stunner of a play.” —Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune When Bella Baird, an isolated creative writing professor at Yale, begins to mentor a brilliant but enigmatic student, Christopher, the two form an unexpectedly intense bond. As their lives and the stories they tell about themselves become intertwined in unpredictable ways, Bella makes a surprising request of Christopher. Brimming with suspense, Rapp’s riveting play explores the limits of what one person can ask of another.

Music as a Chariot offers a multidisciplinary perspective whose primary proposition is that theatre is a type of music. Understanding how music enables the theatre experience helps to shape our entire approach to the performing arts. Beginning with a discussion on the origin and nature of time, the author takes us on an evolutionary journey to discover how music, language and mimesis co-evolved, eventually coming together to produce the complex way we experience theatre. The book integrates the evolutionary neuroscience of the human brain into this journey, offering practical implications and applications for the auditory expression of this concept—namely the fundamental techniques artists use to create sound scores for theatre. With contributions from directors, playwrights, actors and designers, Music as a Chariot explores the use of music to carry ideas into the human soul—a concept that extends beyond the theatrical to include film, video gaming, dance, or anywhere art is manipulated in time.

A study of radio drama