This Meredith Willson American classic tells the story of two people who fall in love.  Given the classic nature of the production, the director and I chose to implement a natural sound design​ with light sound reinforcement.  The 600-seat proscenium theatre converted from a church includes a large balcony section and side balconies referred to as the loge.  While the live acoustics of the venue added to the light sound reinforcement design, there were some challenges regarding the front section of the orchestra seating being very close to the shallow pit.  Sound baffling material was put up along the pit rail to help reduce the bleed directly into the first few rows.  d&b e8 speakers were added as front fills along the pit rail which helped to boost clarity of the vocals over the close presence of the band.  The front fill speakers also helped to shift the sound image down toward the stage as opposed to from the main speakers above.  

To help with the transparency, I added as many speakers as resources would allow to be as close to the audience as possible.  This way I didn't have to turn up the overall volume as much, thus helping to reduce ambient reflections from the speakers.  A main center speaker system was included, and was used for amplification of the vocals.  The main left and right speaker system was used primarily for the band, with select effects and reverb processing added in certain moments.  

During system tuning, I set out a loudspeaker center stage and set delay times using a distance measure and click track for each speaker zone to match the delay time of the test speaker.  I then added an over-delay to the input channels to shift the sound sourcing image to the actors, taking advantage of the Haas effect.  If there was more time and resources, changing input delay with actor movement would have been utilized, but the overall delay settings helped to achieve the transparent system design.

In efforts to control the sound of the band, I implemented an Aviom-like headphone monitoring system to further reduce ambient noise and additional unwanted amplification of the band.  The band was not accustomed to the headphone monitoring and instead chose to forgo the monitoring system.  

While the venue included a front-of-house mounted camera, I had to specify a wide-angle infrared camera and additional video monitors in the rental package so that the cast, stage manager, and myself (as mixer) could see the conductor for cueing.  

As is common with summer stock theatre, the changeover and tech process was very fast.  The changeover schedule was as follows: Saturday evening performance for previous show ended around 10 pm.  Band rehearsal off-site Sunday afternoon.  Wandelprobe with cast on stage and band in the pit Sunday evening.  Monday 10 out of 12 tech with piano/rhythm in band.  Tuesday tech and final dress in afternoon with full band, and Tuesday night was opening.  Given the tight schedule and playing the role of both designer and mixer, additional effort and prep work was performed to make the process as smooth as possible.