Chiacgo, IL (July 23, 2015)—Wonderland, a rock and roll take on the classic children’s book, Alice In Wonderland, was recently staged by the Chicago Children’s Theatre, and to call it an audio challenge might be an understatement. With 11 actors who all play instruments in the show, sound designer Lindsay Jones admits, “I really wasn’t sure what I was going to do.”
According to technical director, Brian Maschka, “The most complicated part of Wonderland was the sound design and equipment.” Jones chose cardioid mics because the actors would be getting their instrument and vocal monitoring from wedges and side fills around the stage. He wanted to ensure that they could get as much monitoring as they needed without feeding back because the actors frequently ventured into the audience located in front of the main PA. Jones explained, “I went with the cardioid mics for my production because I needed to control mic bleed from the monitoring of rock and roll instruments around the actors. All of the actors were on earset mics; however, we had a number of acoustic instruments (ukulele, banjo, violin) that needed to be amplified, and that’s where we used the lavs.”
Ultimately, he chose Point Source Audio’s CR-8S Cardioid Earworn and CR-8L cardioid lavalier microphones for the musical. noting, “The PSA mics sounded great out of the box. We only had to do a minimum amount of EQ-ing—if any—on the actors to get them up and running. That was a huge time-saver and a real relief for me.”
Maschka added, “The mics held up to all the stress we put them through and sounded great. I’ll be using them again next year and for many seasons to come.”
Point Source Audio
www.point-sourceaudio.com
