Urinetown

Urinetown
Summary
Dates 24th Feb - 1st March 2024
Performance Course Third Year BA Musical Theatre, MA Musical Theatre Musical Directors
Location AGOS
Creative Team
Director Oliver Lidert
Sound Designer / Sound No.1 Nommy Soplantila
Lighting Designer Daniel Findlay-Caroll
Musical Directors Hudson Crowe, Miguel Esteban
Design/ Artists Challum Brown, Calum Owens, Mairi Camshron, Mia Doyle, Ruby Hartley-Oliver, Chantal Jarem
Production Team
Stage Manager Reegan Graham
Deputy Stage Manager Jordan Alsoudani
Assistant Stage Managers Grant Haddow, Smiles Ricci
Production Sound Engineer Lana Kirk
Sound No.2 Ana Carolina Sabino
Sound Technicians Rachael Brown, Eilidh Watt

Overview

Urinetown the Musical follows the story of the citizens of a dystopian town, where people must pay to pee. This musical touches on themes of police brutality, capitalism, corrupt political systems, social irresponsibility and revolution.

This was performed by the BAMT3 and MAMT Musical Directing students of 2024, and brought to life by PTM and PAD students. This was performed in thrust staging, within the Alexander Gibson Opera Studio (AGOS).

Sound

Overview

Staging a production in thrust within the AGOS proved a challenge for Sound. As there were multiple ways of RF to accommodate for the Actor-Muso format of the piece, ensuring there was no feedback was a large consideration.

Vocal Mics

Feedback control influenced the decision to swap the majority of the cast onto headset mics over hairline, so that less gain would have to be used. A few cast members remained on hairline, such as Hope Cladwell (played by Eden Barrie), due to her wearing a gag that covered the lower portion of her face, as well as the members of the cast who played Violin/Viola throughout the show. Urinetown also featured the MDs (Hudson Crowe, Miguel Esteban) singing, so they were also on hairline mics. CPC headsets and DPA 4060s were used. 3 cast members; Hope CLadwell (played by Eden Barrie), Officer Lockstock (played by Nathan Morris) and Bobby Strong (played by Kyle Doney) were also on backup mics. As Eden was on a hairline mic, the two 4060s were secured with Hellerman, whilst Nathan and Kyle had a 4060 attached to the boom of their headsets, so that they were able to have the DPA as a main and the headset as the backup.

System Design

The system comprised of 4 KV2 ESD12s (2 of which were the in-house PA that had been re-focused), 2 KV2 EX6s, 2 d&b C7s and 4 d&b E9s. The main PA which covered the centre and both sides of the thrust consisted of the ESD12s, with 2 EX6s in the centre of the centre section as a vocal feed. The C7 subs (borrowed from the RCS Electroacoustics department) were set on the AGOS catwalks. The 4 E9s (also borrowed from Electroacoustics) were used as onstage monitoring for the cast, and were placed with 2 on either side of the downstage thrust, and 2 upstage.

3 DQ racks were used in this production, with one on either side of the stage and the remaining in the backroom space.

Personal Monitoring

As one of the performances were BSL interpreted, this meant that the Sound Department had to also provide IEMs for signers. In addition to this, 4 personal monitors were used, 2 for the MDs at Keys 1 and Keys 2 and 2 for those using the drum kit and surrounding percussion (cast and MDs used this).

File:Urinetown IO List.xlsx

File:Urinetown Control Group Plot.xlsx