Spring Awakening

This electrifying rock adaptation of a 1906 play about sexual and intellectual exploration among teens in a small German town explores the journey from adolescence to adulthood with poignancy and passion. The eight-time Tony Award-winning musical begins as a straightforward tale of girl-meets-boy but exposes the complicated landscape of teenage life bubbling beneath the surface of propriety and social expectations.

This was the first associate designer position for me, and my first USC School of Dramatic Arts’ sponsored show. Coming out of a year of online school from COVID-19, this was the school’s first onground musical back, and it was placed into one of the two black box theaters. Placing a rock musical in a 70-seat black box theater presented plenty of sound challenges, and resulted in a very unique and impressive sound design by Naveen Bhatia.

My role on the project consisted of a lot of learning, taking notes, updating paperwork, and providing the preliminary sound effects design.

The show was mixed by Alexis Attala (and her assistant Nova the service dog) on a DigiCo SD10 with a primarily Meyer speaker system. The sound effects were driven using QLAB, and there was a mix of Sennheiser and Shure wireless mics, using a boom arm in order to get more volume out of the actors due to such a small space.
It was a fantastic show to serve as associate on, and taught me a lot about designing musicals, how to address the challenges of working in a less-than-ideal space, and working with other designers and production team members to create a show with a holistic design. I served as the A2 for the first two weeks that we were in rehearsals, as the show A2s did not come in until tech. This was a fantastic opportunity, and I was very excited to learn about and execute the duties of an A2.