Nick Keenan, Web Ninja.
We don’t normally pay attention to 2pm around here–or time at all, really, since it’s always 2am here–but this afternoon, you’d have been able to join in a chat at TheatreFace with our own 2am summit guru, Nick Keenan. Quite simply, if it weren’t for the ongoing conversations with Nick among others, there would be no 2amtheatre.
If you weren’t there, don’t worry. We’ve got you covered with a transcript from the chat…
Here it is, raw and complete. You might recognize some folks from here and from our blogroll. (Might? Might?) And please, go visit TheatreFace and sign up already. You know you want to…
JACOB COAKLEY: Excellent. Let’s start with an easy one, Nick — how’d you get into theatre? Then — how’d you get into sound?
NICK KEENAN: I did a very small amount of theater in high school – was actually pretty jealous of the kids who did student writtens. In college, I started with a Japanese major but wanted to try out a gen ed in college.
NICK KEENAN: I did, and by senior year I was producing undergrad work.
NICK KEENAN: I wrote a couple plays, and ended up designing sound for an adaptation we did of the Jacobean play the Revenger’s Tragedy – lots of Nine Inch Nails and Tool, looped and shaped.
NK:” We didn’t really have a sound department at Umass at the time, and the faculty hired me on after graduation to design a whole season. /e
JACOB COAKLEY: Umass?
NICK KEENAN: UMass Amherst, class of 2000
JACOB COAKLEY: Did you have a bacgground in composition or music before you took off into sound? Or was it just filing need at first, then fidning your talent at it?
NICK KEENAN: I liked music a lot – especially over-produced studio albums. Like many sound designers my age, it was pretty easy to take the textures that Trent Reznor was creating in NIN at the time and transport them into theatrical environments.
JACOB COAKLEY: it was around then he was releasing all his individual protools tracks, I think…
NICK KEENAN: Listening to those kinds of albums helps train your ear to pick apart different layers, directionality, frequency, and the way it all can be orchestrated together to create an emotional experience. /e
NICK KEENAN: A little bit after, actually. This is was circa The Fragile.
JACOB COAKLEY: OK.
JACOB COAKLEY: Did you go on to a grad program to learn more about sound design, or did you pick it up on the fly designing for your college?
NICK KEENAN: At this date, I know of I think five grad programs for theatrical sound design in the country. Its not the path that any of us took. Actually, my intern at the Goodman right now is the first trainee that I’ve ever seen in a sound grad program.
NICK KEENAN: So it was jump right into professional work and learn how to collaborate real quick. /e
JACOB COAKLEY: Do you feel at a disadvantage b/c of that? Have you taken composing classes since leaving school? Or jsut picked it up in teh course of your work?
NICK KEENAN: I think being in sound alone and learning all that you need to know to do it properly is its own advantage. In Chicago, we have about 10 full-time sound designers in town, and about 1,300 shows we produce each year.
NICK KEENAN: Composing I’m still teaching myself – I’m not a musician or composer at all – but I can often fool folks because in non-musical theater you want texture, not melody.
NICK KEENAN: But you need a process that allows you learn all these skills AND overlap designs so that you can earn a living wage.
NICK KEENAN: /e
JACOB COAKLEY: Ah yes, the living wage problem again. 🙂
NICK KEENAN: A problem that every artist must solve, yes.
JACOB COAKLEY: Talk about what you mean by “texture” for a non-musical thetare. What is that exactly? Scene sting music, underscore during dramatic parts? Does that rsolve itself differently for each show?
NICK KEENAN: I think it’s pretty elemental. When I’m designing a system I’m thinking about the acoustics of the space, and how that translates into the acoustics of the world of the play.
NICK KEENAN: The texture of sound can be used to make spaces feel different than they are, just as light changes the way that static objects are shaped.
NICK KEENAN: And even if I’m not using music in a show, I may change the way a room ‘feels” by adding rumbles, tones, dancing notes, environmental scoring: texture /e
JACOB COAKLEY: Tahnks for that.
NICK KEENAN: An example, actually:
JACOB COAKLEY: please!
NICK KEENAN: You guys know A.R. Gurney’s play “The Dining Room?”
JACOB COAKLEY: vaguely, yes.
NICK KEENAN: Basically a bunch of families in different decades overlapping their lives in the same environment: the dining room. You’ll be in the 40s and then teens from the 80s will run through.
JACOB COAKLEY: OK.
NICK KEENAN: We cut all the props in a production we did of that at New Leaf theater, and I fired a special practical speaker into the dining room table.
NICK KEENAN: The actors would move their hand, and you would hear them pick up and polish a fork or fold a newspaper, but you wouldn’t see it happen.
NICK KEENAN: The space became the home of ghosts.
JACOB COAKLEY: that’s pretty cool.
NICK KEENAN: It all comes from thinking about the acoustic “physics” of the world of the play.
NICK KEENAN: /e
JACOB COAKLEY: Very neat
JACOB COAKLEY: OK, switching gears.
JACOB COAKLEY: sorry about the pause, there. . .
JACOB COAKLEY: You also have a website theatreforthefuture.com
JACOB COAKLEY: and are active in the 2 a.m. Theatre website.
JACOB COAKLEY: How have those projects affected your theatre-making?
JACOB COAKLEY: Are you able as a designer to put some of those ideas in play?
NICK KEENAN: Oh ya.
NICK KEENAN: The biggest change from making my thoughts about theater and my process transparent came from having to think through those thoughts and make them, em… less selfish, I guess.
NICK KEENAN: When you believe something to the world, you have to make sure it really matters to you before you say it. (Not the same rules when commenting on blogs, naturally)
NICK KEENAN: So it’s helped clarify how to articulate the process to myself, and that allows me to evaluate that process more objectively, I think, and get a lot more feedback which helps quicken development /e
NICK KEENAN: Thinking about one… I did this post on using qLab for multi-track mixing in the space which I did for a recent Rivendell show http://theaterforthefuture.com/multi-track-mixing-with-qlab-and-aud…
NICK KEENAN: And simply writing that post forced me to sort of codify how I would do that in future processes.
NICK KEENAN: I now try to mix in the space (rather than on Logic in my studio) whenever possible, because I know I’ll get better results.
NICK KEENAN: Blogging about the process forced me to create a system that incorporate that technique into my regular process /e
JACOB COAKLEY: very cool
JACOB COAKLEY: OK, it’s about 25 after, so I’m gonna throw the doors open to questions from everyone lurking about.
NICK KEENAN: Sweet!
JACOB COAKLEY: While they think of stuff, let me ask — how’d you get from Mass to Chicago?
NICK KEENAN: Via Dallas Theatre Center and Backstagejobs, actually. I landed an internship there, spent a year there in the Company Management department, and interacted with all the designers coming to town.
NICK KEENAN: I heard through many of them about the “godfathers” of Chicago sound – Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen – and the kind of theater being created there.
NICK KEENAN: I was young, didn’t really dig NYC, wanted to really dig into sound design, and moved after the internship.
NICK KEENAN: And – really luckily – the sound department at the Goodman had an overhire spot in the Sound Department right at that moment.
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: Okay, I’ve got one: Do you find yourself assuming you’ll use computers for your designs, or do you start with nothing and then wait until the design is forced into needing computers? I mean, I guess they’re sort of used by default now, but…
REBECCAZ: Hullo, Nick. Here’s a question for ye. Our sound designer moved away from Chicago but we still collaborated long distance on our last season. We’ll probably look for a local sound designer for our next season because we, of course, prefer …
REBECCAZ: … collaborating in person with our designer. Any advice for long distance collaborations in general?
NICK KEENAN: Chris: They are TOTALLY used by default now. Especially in the smaller venues where I design, the big expense is that there arent enough trained operators who can still nail a complex design on CD players.
NICK KEENAN: RebecChristopher Ashworth: Because of that enviromental texture thing I was talking about earlier, I don’t think you’re truly designing sound unless you show up and at least once hear how your work bounces around the space.
JACOB COAKLEY: Any more?
JACOB COAKLEY: Let me turn the questions around a bit and ask something of everyone else here — how could you use sound better in your shows? What would you need?
REBECCAZ: A local sound designer. 😉
JACOB COAKLEY: 😉
NICK KEENAN: An available local sound designer. 🙂
JACOB COAKLEY: Nick – correct me if I’m wrong, but did you work with Chicago Backstage Jobs? (Forgive me if I’ve got thename wrong)
KYLE HAMMAN: an available local sound designer who isn’t being pulled away by the myriad of other projects that they have booked in other theatres. 🙂
NICK KEENAN: e xactly, kyle.
NICK KEENAN: Yup, I ended up sitting next to patrick hudson at the Goodman who founded the site.
JACOB COAKLEY: note to anyone considering career to pay teh living wage — apparetnly sound designers are in high demand…
NICK KEENAN: I offered to help reprogram it to allow autoposting a few years ago, and that was my first big web project.
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: “What we need to use sound better” –> A space that isn’t actively polluted by uncontrolled neighboring sounds. 🙂
NICK KEENAN: It’s true: I think design in general is one of the quickest ways to actually get both a paying and artistic control in our business today… which is a little alarming to me
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: Why alarming?
NICK KEENAN: Chris: At New Leaf, we’re next to the zoo and a bus stop. When we’re not hearing traffic all day long, we’re surrounded by braying hyenas.
JACOB COAKLEY: LOL!
REBECCAZ: Which is totally cool, though, you must admit.
JACOB COAKLEY: So how do you deal with the hyenas?
NICK KEENAN: Adding low-frequency tones and rumbles to a lot of my work there is a direct response to this problem… You listen to the space, and you design for those parameters.
JACOB COAKLEY: CAN you?
SCOTTY ISERI: That demands a question: given how many shows one must do to make a career, is there an ideal number of shows? Do you like the balancing of projects or would you rather do just one show at a time?
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: That’s fascinating. Was wondering if you could try to design with unpredictable sound pollution in mind.
NICK KEENAN: I like doing two shows at a time – one that pays the bills, and one that I have a lot of artistic input into. That’s where web design and engineering come in for me…
NICK KEENAN: : In many theaters in chicago, the El runs overhead or underground (Chopin basement, for instance.) I totally try to reshape that noise into a workable motif if it makes sense in the play.
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: I love that.
REBECCAZ: Stage Left’s the same way, el wise. Whenever we have a train as an aspect of a script, we always like working there.
KYLE HAMMAN: that reminds me of a story i read about bono (i know. don’t judge.) and how when they are recording they do a tape test. they record to tape and drive around dublin listening to work out kinks. sound has to work in the place where you hear it.
NICK KEENAN: Scotty: And yes, one show never pays all the bills. Which is why many forces take us out of the game after a 7-10 year career.
JACOB COAKLEY: sigh…
JUSTIN ARGENIO: Nick, May I ask how you have found your artistic niche in New Leaf and Side Project?
NICK KEENAN: Kyle: That “car test” scene from “Once” is one of my faves. Usability testing is really missing from theater. Which is really weird, because other industries look to theater to know how to do it in a non-obnoxious way.
NICK KEENAN: If you’re always serving other visions, it’s hard to understand what’s important to you as an artist
NICK KEENAN: Kyle: I think we have become so focused on the play the play the play that we’ve lost touch with the audience and their total experience. (in general)
JACOB COAKLEY: That’s an awesome way to put it.
JACOB COAKLEY: Alright everyone — WE don’t have to end if Nick can stay, but it is 11:45, and he does have to pay the bills.
NICK KEENAN: I just talked with our AD Jess Hutchinson that we’re actually going to “stage” how we want the box office staff to interact with audience for our next NL play – I think that experience needs design, too.
JACOB COAKLEY: So, Nick – THANK YOU!
NICK KEENAN: I’m definitely good for a while. Thanks for having me, Jacob!
JACOB COAKLEY: Cool! I’m not showing you the door, just wanted to make sure you were appreciated!
JACOB COAKLEY: LEt’s keep going!
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: Yes, thanks Nick. And: really dig the observation about crafting the total experience.
JOE GRIFFIN: Nick, re: good point about EL bleed. You have to sometimes account for other environemtnal bleed–the band in the bar next door for example.
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: Sort of comes back to the dogfood question, I thiNick Keenan: how can you make yourself experience the same thing as your patrons? Even the edge-case stuff?
NICK KEENAN: By the way, ladies and gents: Chris Ashworth is the dude who created qLab. Which makes my life possible.
JOE GRIFFIN: Chris: thank you thank you thank you!
KYLE HAMMAN: people (even theatre people) often forget that everything has been designed. some of it is poor design but it all has design.
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: Nick also never exaggerates.
NICK KEENAN: Joe: Old steep space, huh.
NICK KEENAN: Chris: Never.
JOE GRIFFIN: Yup. Old Steep space.
REBECCAZ: Thanks, Chris. qLab is definitely going to find a place in our company soon.
NICK KEENAN: Kyle: exactly. It’s either designed with thought or without thought.
KYLE HAMMAN: thank you chris!
JACOB COAKLEY: In terms of audience experience — that’s been one of my big disconnects with the “support the playwright” thing — in my mind so many artistics and playwrights are writing “inside baseball” pieces, trying to make “art” they forget about the audience
JUSTIN ARGENIO: I’m sure Chris just got a wave of friend requests (me included)
JACOB COAKLEY: I used to joke that box offices were the happiest places on earth — until they ad to start actually selling tickets.
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: @Jacob: Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing.
JACOB COAKLEY: (And please keep in mind that I am a playwright, and have also worked in box offices.)
NICK KEENAN: So many of our patron experiences are traditional instead of designed… we implicitly ask them to “not look at” that part of the stage / lobby / play because we didn’t give it any thought during the process.
JOE GRIFFIN: Nick: in terms of mixing in the space, how willing do you find directors etc. to be in accommodating that?
NICK KEENAN: Jacob: Hilarious re: box office happy.
JACOB COAKLEY: ☺
NICK KEENAN: Joe: Directors LOVE it. it makes me agile. If I’ve prebuilt and preprogrammed enough, I can respond to a director note almost as fast as an actor.
NICK KEENAN: rather than going back to the studio and coming back the next day.
JUSTIN ARGENIO: Nick: How do you cope with the integrity of the designer vs. what the director, artistic director, producer wants?
JUSTIN ARGENIO: Especially if you disagree.
JOE GRIFFIN: Makes sense. so you have your Logic rig onsite then?
NICK KEENAN: Justin: It depends on what I can get away with. Which I think is true of all of us. It’s a game of “yes and.”
NICK KEENAN: If you as a designer cut off someone else’s process with an inflexible “No.” you’re cutting off the creative flow in the room. Poisonous.
JACOB COAKLEY: nods head.
JIM DAVIS: exactly, Nick. Exactly.
NICK KEENAN: Joe: I do have logic there, but I prebuild a ton of audio layers that I then mix in qLab. the link above explains how it’s done with using music as an example.
JACOB COAKLEY: here’s the link again: http://theaterforthefuture.com/multi-track-mixing-with-qlab-and-aud…
KYLE HAMMAN: does designing in the room depend on the system the theatre has in place? or do you bring in your own system each time?
JOE GRIFFIN: re: layers. Cool. I did a fiar bit of that on “Hopper.” checking link now. (thanks Jacob)
NICK KEENAN: Justin: so you redirect the velocity of a given idea. You find common vocabulary with found material – prototypes. You smile, nod, and try again.
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: Riffing on designing the complete experience: have you ever had the chance (or desire) to design the audio beyond the boundaries of the performance space and performance time? More than just the typical pre-show music?
NICK KEENAN: Kyle: I absolutely have to supplement the system I have in 80% of the theaters I work in. I often bring in the qLab computer and 3-4 additional speakers and amps. Gets expensive.
NICK KEENAN: But I can also use that gear to generate passive rental income as long as others take care of it.
JUSTIN ARGENIO: Nick: Do you often charge the theatre for the added equiptment?
JUSTIN ARGENIO: And how often do they say no?
NICK KEENAN: Chris: because we have a kind of “staging” room in New Leaf – a kind of two room lobby – I usually design different environments or cues. I think I’m gonna get more ambitious with that in the future though.
NICK KEENAN: New Leaf’s “The Man Who Was Thursday” was developed as a kind of theme-park-ride flow of audience rather than the typical Lobby / Box Office / take your seats flow. The Neo Futurists probably do this better than any theater I know…
NICK KEENAN: Justin: I often charge the theater when they are not providing the equipment, but 90% of the time at a discount. Theaters with budgets have the gear and they don’t need mine. I take that income / expense into account when choosing to take on a sho
KYLE HAMMAN: in the “design the experience” vein, how do you create systems that are solid enough to remain for more than one show but nimble enough to fit the artistic needs of each show?
NICK KEENAN: Follow up question for Chris / anyone: What world is “Preshow music” actually in? Some plays incorporate it into onstage radios / jukeboxes, but if they don’t… what does it mean?
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: Heh. A great question.
JOE GRIFFIN: For that reason I sometimes build preshow ambiences instead.
JACOB COAKLEY: I always just thought it was the stagehands’ mix tape?
JACOB COAKLEY: 🙂
NICK KEENAN: Kyle: This really depends on the layout of the space and the layout of the audience. In small venues, I rehang and rerun every speaker and line to get exactly the shape I want.
NICK KEENAN: Jacob: Or the directors. Which is worse, IMHO. 😉
JACOB COAKLEY: ☺
JACOB COAKLEY: Generally when I was designing sound, the pre-show music wasn’t a part of the world of the play, as much as it was the head space I wanted teh audience in.
JACOB COAKLEY: For example, an Othello I did stripped away layers of sound throughout the show.
NICK KEENAN: That’s all just to say: We’re all learning as artists together how sound should be used in theater. We don’t know… we get to experiment.
JACOB COAKLEY: So what started as mash-ups in pre-show — highly produced stuff. ended with REznore-like tones.
JACOB COAKLEY: And hooray for experiments. . .
NICK KEENAN: Jacob: Awesome. So that idea can be further developed: what is the shape of that headspace? Does the audience leave one world, pass through a barrier, and enter the world of the play? How do those worlds interact?
KYLE HAMMAN: have you (on anyone here) every heard of or done a post show sound? like a dessert or after dinner cocktail so to speak?
JUSTIN ARGENIO: Where so you stop designig though, if the design moves out into the lobby, what’s to stop it from moving out of the theatre into the parking lot. What would be the prverbial line in the sand before it gets to be too much?
JOE GRIFFIN: Kyle: I’ve done postshow a few times.
NICK KEENAN: Kyle: Absolutely. That’s even more tricky… at the end of the show, each audience member has a different emotional reaction to the play, and that’s your gift to them. You can wipe that all away with the wrong choice.
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: Fascinating point.
JOE GRIFFIN: @Nick: bingo. You’re in the position of dictating how they should feel. On at least one show, what the director wanted for post show felt very forced…
NICK KEENAN: Justin: I totally just came from this talk on audience experience development, if you couldn’t tell. The trick is that there isn’t a line – you can design how the experience fades in from the audience’s life before they parked their car.
NICK KEENAN: I think the line is the points where you control the interaction: Outside the theater, entering the theater, presenting your ticket: these are all ritual experiences that can be made surprising, confusing, or euphoric through design choices.
JACOB COAKLEY: I’m thinking of Cirque installed shows — where as soon as you hit the lobby, you’re in their world, down to ticket-takers in character. . .
KYLE HAMMAN: ritual. yes.
NICK KEENAN: “the bathrooms are down the hall to the right.” AWOOOGA.
REBECCAZ: =)
KYLE HAMMAN: H ere’s your program.” zoinks!
JOE GRIFFIN: “please turn off your celphone.” BLAM!
NICK KEENAN: Jacob: And you can also take it too far, right? It can be annoying if it’s too self-conscious or it makes the audience feel self conscious? Many designers I know consider the best reviews the ones where their contribution is not mentioned.
JACOB COAKLEY: The whole “good design is easily noticed, great design isn’t even seen.”
JOE GRIFFIN: “Hey, I saw a review of your show…they didn’t mention you at all…GREAT JOB!”
KYLE HAMMAN: not to harp on post show but too many times the ritual for aftershow is house lights thrown on and people standing up looking at each other and wondering…how do we talk about what we just saw. can the sound design or even light design give them..
KYLE HAMMAN: a conversation starter?
JACOB COAKLEY: It’s funny, b/c we had KEvin Adams — LD for Spring Awakening — on here a couple weeks back, and he HATES that. Thinks design can absolutely be part of teh conversation, and really push the world of the play.
JOE GRIFFIN: though haven’t we already disrupted the “world” with the curtain call?
JOE GRIFFIN: though haven’t we already disrupted the “world” with the curtain call?
NICK KEENAN: Kyle: Absolutely. That ritual is disorienting too. You kind of HAVE to choose to do something. Maybe “don’t rush to the parking lot! Valet for everyone!”
JOE GRIFFIN: double post, sorry.
JACOB COAKLEY: Kyle: intresting question. I know a lot of people LOATHE “talkbacks” but they’re coming in style as a way to give people a forum to talk about something, adn encourage word of mouth marketing.
NICK KEENAN: Jacob: One idea that we’ve been experimenting with is the low-pressure “let’s go out for a beer / coffee / dessert” after show – which you can do with smaller houses.
NICK KEENAN: Those talkbacks really cook, because it’s collaborative and community-driven rather than confrontational.
KYLE HAMMAN: we are heavily trying to get people to hang out in our bar after the show but it’s a ritual change that is needed. or training for a new ritual.
NICK KEENAN: If you look at how most theaters design talkbacks currently, they literally interrupt the emotional flow of the evening, shine a harsh light on the audience, and interrogate them. It’s like low-grade Guantanamo.
NICK KEENAN: Kyle: The craziest thing I had to learn as a designer is how to design for older audiences and how to design for younger audiences. I approach each project with a different set of ears.
KYLE HAMMAN: @nick: yes- those are the most engaging conversations. the ones where people have had 5-10 minutes away from it and then come back to talk about it. but how can you design that 5-10 min.?
NICK KEENAN: Folks with 9pm bedtimes just won’t go out after a play. Can’t do it. But you CAN get them back for a weekend brunch. Design starts with “who is using this?”
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: And if you CAN design that 5-10 minutes into it, how much of a competitive advantage has that become for you? 🙂
JACOB COAKLEY: Good point, Nick — b/c that was my first question — how do you get people who need to spell the babysitter to come?
LESLIE BERMAN: My local non-profit community theater does talkbacks because they get funding if they do. Different audiences love them or hate them. Definitely depends on the mood at the curtain. They always have pre- and post-show music related to the show.
NICK KEENAN: Kyle / Chris: Yes. You just blew my mind. You need an emotional palette cleanser. For us, it was walking outside with the audience to the cafe / bar (we have a younger crowd, and we WANT a younger crowd)
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: Or, to put it less competitively, how much additional value have you added to the experience.
KYLE HAMMAN: “who is using this?” -thank you for that.
LESLIE BERMAN: We have a cafe/bar that stays open until the last audience member leaves the building. That sparks some chatter. But if the show is heavy, and the audience is silent when they exit the theater, they don’t want to hang around, they want to be alone.
JOE GRIFFIN: Nick: is the invitation to the cafe/bar stated in some specific way so that the entire audience gets it?
NICK KEENAN: That walk is processing time. We talk with ourselves. We celebrate little in-joke moments of the play. We watch our audience connect with their friends and process it.
JACOB COAKLEY: Nick: re walk to bar, something else NeoFuturists are good at.
LESLIE BERMAN: Everyone’s invited by personal stage manager announcement before the opening curtain, during the turn off your cellphone talk.
JOE GRIFFIN: @Leslie-good plan.
LESLIE BERMAN: We also do an opening night reception in the bar, for audience to meet actors and crew, and specifically invite audience to stay for it.
NICK KEENAN: Joe: Yup. depending on show content (because Leslie is right on about heavy shows), we might announce before the event in the ticket confirm, we might have a box office invite, or we might rally crowd during curtain call with a “huzzah!”
JOE GRIFFIN: sounds good.
JOE GRIFFIN: is the entire cast generally down with the hanging-out, or are they required to attend? I’ve been to many talkbacks where you see 4-5 cast members stroll by with coats and bags on their way out.
JACOB COAKLEY: Seems to be winding down…
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: I love that in this discussion sound design has served as a framework for really designing the whole experience. That pretty much sums up the magic of Nick Keenan, don’t it? 🙂
JACOB COAKLEY: 🙂
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: Note to powers that be: file this thread at the 2 am theater site.
KYLE HAMMAN: ☺
JACOB COAKLEY: That’s why he’s a ninja…
NICK KEENAN: Chris: Everything affects everything else. By studying marketing, I’m a better sound designer. Truth.
LESLIE BERMAN: Our physical space naturally invites the audience to stay, because you have to pass through the bar/cafe to leave the building. It’s a combined lobby/bar/cafe/box office area, with a big central space that has tables and chairs and enough space for
LESLIE BERMAN: more than 60 people to stand around.
JACOB COAKLEY: Leslie – where is your space?
JACOB COAKLEY: Where do you wrok/create?
KYLE HAMMAN: “wrok”=fortunate typo
LESLIE BERMAN: the lead actors, director and designers are required to do the talkback. other cast members drift in or away depending on their preferences.
NICK KEENAN: Thanks all. I think with this number of geniuses, we can do some pretty kick ass things.
LESLIE BERMAN: It’s in Lake Charles Louisiana, The Lake Charles Little Theatre.
JOE GRIFFIN: Nick, Jacob, everyone…thanks for doing this. I gotta go do some ballerina foley now…
LESLIE BERMAN: I really have enjoyed this and got some good ideas for future shows.
JACOB COAKLEY: OK, I *really* think we should let Nick get back to his day job — or at the very least . . . me.
JACOB COAKLEY: ☺
NICK KEENAN: Have fun all!
REBECCAZ: Thanks, Nick. This has been great. Thanks, Jacob, as well, for being a great host.
JIM DAVIS: Thanks Nic
JACOB COAKLEY: I’ll have a transcript up soon here — and Nick, I’ll also send one your way, too.
CHRISTOPHER ASHWORTH: Thanks Nick
KYLE HAMMAN: thanks, nick and all!
LESLIE BERMAN: thanks.
JACOB COAKLEY: Thanks, Nick, and thanks for eveyrone for participating!
