Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2009 - 66

dialogue with Woof, he has the speech from the second level
up there, and...I think its 12 milliseconds we're adding to that
for the dialog, when they're downstage. There's a console scene
change that will take that out, or adjust to where they are."
All of this programmability does not mean that the sound
mixer becomes a "go button monkey" however. Sound mixer
Jake Scudder paints a picture of a very active mix: "I'm constantly moving and adjusting, and it changes on a night to night
basis; this person's a little sick, this person has a lot of energy;
it got really cold outside, it got really hot. It's never going to be
the same show."
Even at the mixing console, creating an illusion of transparency requires constant attention to subtle nuances.

Hair Today, Hear Tomorrow
There are, of course, many and significant differences between
the sound design for the original production of Hair and Abe
Jacob's new production at the close of the first decade of the
twenty-first century. And yet, Jacob's design objectives have remained very much the same: cleaner, clearer, and more transparent:
I think the objective is still the same; it's just how you get
there. I mean, it's easier to drive the bus now than it was then,
because, you know, we've got automatic transmission. I still
want it to have the same impact; I still want it to have the same
effect. It's easier now to achieve the things that we wanted to do

back then that were a little more technically not possible. We
have different reverb units now that we can use, but we can still
get the same kind of effects. The world around us has changed.
bringing sound to broadway was a big change; not as readily
acceptable as it should have been back then. Now it is. but no,
we haven't changed, we're still giving the impression of cleanliness, an impact of an ability to hear what's being performed,
and I think all those same requirements are there. like I say,
it's easier to do it now.
Of course, anyone who has sat down at a fifty-six channel
digital desk for the first time might be tempted to argue Jacob's
last point. but for Jacob, that modern sophistication allows him
to do things that were impossible forty years ago. It is easier for
Jacob to create these illusions now. The one thing that hasn't
changed in forty years is that Jacob hasn't lost sight of his original goal-to provide a conduit for the audience to connect on
a deeper level with the extraordinary experience provided by
this seminal broadway musical, Hair.
Richard K. Thomas is a professor of Theatre Sound at
Purdue University. This article serves as a coda to his
recent monograph, The designs of Abe Jacob.

Sources Cited
Thomas, Richard K. 2008. The Designs of Abe Jacob. Syracuse
NY: United States Institute for Theatre Technology.

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