New York, NY (October 29, 2025)—Serving up a radical reinterpretation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classic musical The Phantom of the Opera, the current run of Masquerade takes NYC audiences inside the world of the original show, allowing them to wander and see a multifaceted theatrical experience up-close and in person in a radical new staging that allows them to roam throughout the building/venue.
The special room architecture and the constant change of audience positions places unusual demands on the audio; sound designer Brett Jarvis, in turn, created reportedly the most extensive LD Systems audio installation seen to date.
The former Lee’s Art Shop, on 57th Street, has been remodeled and transformed so that each floor presents its own settings, from opulent ballrooms to mysterious catacombs. As a result, the show requires uniform sound distribution across several very differently designed rooms, speech intelligibility at every angle, minimal susceptibility to feedback with headsets and lavalier microphones, high-frequency reproduction for classical arrangements, and low-frequency reproduction for organ sounds—all embedded in an immersive sound design. In addition, the loudspeakers have been integrated into the scenery to be unobtrusive.
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“From the very first meeting with sound designer Brett Jarvis and Andrew Lloyd Webber producer Lee McCutcheon, it became clear that we had to pull out all the stops for Masquerade,” said Jens Kleinhuis, pro audio field application engineer with the Adam Hall Group. Together with Ivan Klepac, integrated systems field application engineer from the integrated systems project support team, an audio setup was created over the course of several demo dates and training sessions that ultimately uses more than 1,000 speakers—including around 660 CURV 500 satellites, 186 DQOR and over 80 MAILA array systems alone.
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Also present are MAUI i1 in-line speakers and CFL in-ceiling systems and ICOA PRO SUB 21 A high-performance subwoofers, as well as a pair of ANNY 8 Bluetooth PA speakers. The complete system is driven and controlled by 68 IPA 424 T 4-channel installation amplifiers, each equipped with an X-EDAI Ethernet & Dante expansion card to integrate all components into the existing Dante network.
