Meyer Sound News : Meyer System Engulfs Audience in WJD Wetherspoon Installs MM-4 sicked Wizardry

Meyer System Engulfs Audience in WJD Wetherspoon Installs MM-4 sicked Wizardry

"The M1Ds worked out very well. The sound was exceptionally smooth and clear. Everybody seemed to notice. That was the primary vocal system, and one of the comments I heard most often was, 'I could hear every word.'"

- Tony Meola
Sound Designer

Distinguished New York sound designer Tony Meola is known for creating theatrical audio systems that are "transparent" or "invisible." However, those two terms take on a different shade of meaning when a show is set in Oz – where things aren't always what they seem or where they seem – as opposed to a show set in, well, Kansas. That crucial distinction explains, at least in part, why Meola placed over 150 Meyer Sound loudspeakers all around – and even underneath – the audience for the pre-Broadway engagement of the new musical Wicked at San Francisco's Curran Theatre. After all, when in Oz, one must allow for all sorts of sonic wizardry.

As one example, Meola took advantage of a plenum chamber under the floor of the vintage 1922 Curran, placing a dozen of Meyer Sound's MM-4 miniature wide-range loudspeakers in the space, with sound coming up through grates in the orchestra seating section. "The wizard is supposed to be omnipresent," Meola observes, "so I wanted his voice coming from everywhere." Meola wired the 1,600-seat theatre for sound from top to bottom, with loudspeakers grouped into primary systems – main, foldback and surround/effects – which were further broken down into numerous sub-systems to allow for imaging and movement of sounds. "I think we used 26 of the available 28 matrix outputs we had available," notes Meola.

Anchoring the main system was a split center cluster of sixteen M1D ultra-compact curvilinear array loudspeakers, hidden from most seats by the acoustically transparent fabric wings of a giant dragon. "The dragon was a challenge because it restricted my ability to use a traditional center speaker cluster," says Meola. "We looked at the possibility of using a split line array, and it seemed to give us the coverage we needed. It was a little scary, though, because it was our first time trying it."

Meola's long-time associate Kai Harada used Meyer Sound MAPP Online to model both the configuration and orientation of the clusters, and the predictions proved to be remarkably accurate, says Meola. "The M1Ds worked out very well. The sound was exceptionally smooth and clear. Everybody seemed to notice. That was the primary vocal system, and one of the comments I heard most often was, 'I could hear every word.'" Supporting the keystone M1D arrays in the main system were a diverse collection of other Meyer Sound loudspeakers, including MM-4s (front fills and stalls), UPA-2P compact narrow coverage cabinets (mezzanine and stalls delay), UPA-1P compact wide coverage loudspeakers for orchestra left and right and keyboards/percussion, and CQ-1 wide coverage main loudspeakers for the balcony (assisted by a veteran UM-1 horn). A quartet of 650-P high power subwoofers held down the bottom end of the main system.

The onstage foldback system comprised a half dozen UPM-2P ultra-compact narrow coverage cabinets along with eight MM-4s underneath grilles in the stage floor. The extensive surround effects system utilized a total of 52 individual loudspeakers, with MM-4s and UPM-2Ps dispersed throughout the house plus a pair each of CQ-2s and 650-Ps for on-stage effects. For Meola, the advent of the tiny MM-4 has opened up new realms for placing sounds wherever he wants them to go. "We use them to come up with surprises," he says, "and to do some subtle things. In this show, for example, we have this wind swirling around the auditorium, and then you hear the voice of the Wicked Witch of the East, very faint, coming from the MM-4s on the back wall. That was a particularly nice moment, I think."

The San Francisco performances marked the debut of Wicked, a new musical with songs by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman. It was directed by Joe Mantello and starred Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel and Robert Morse. The same team takes the show to Broadway in the fall, with opening slated for October 30 at the George Gershwin Theater. For the larger and deeper Gershwin, Meola plans some changes to the system, beefing up some proscenium loudspeaker locations by replacing MM-4s with UPAs.

Assisting Meola and Harada on the "Wicked" sound team are head engineer Douglas Graves and assistant engineer Jack Babin. The Curran's house sound engineer Margot McFeddries was primary house operator for the San Francisco show, while Graves will be behind the Cadac J-type consoles for the Broadway run.

August, 2003