Finding Extracurriculars for YOU
As I was deciding which college to apply to, Tufts checked all my boxes like no other. A huge part of what I wanted in a school was to have various…
If you’ve ever been in any kind of theatre production, you understand the title. Maybe the title even makes you cringe, or gives you a mini heart attack. I’m sound designing a show all by myself for the first time at Tufts, and I am smack dab in the middle of my tech week for Urinetown: The Musical. In the midst of my chaos, I thought I would stop for a second to give you a tour of what tech/hell week looks like in college (but also I really need a break from coiling wires and patching mics).
Being in theatre at Tufts means a lot of things. Firstly, it is hella time-consuming. Our load-in (when we bring in all our equipment eg. set, props, makeup kits, transmitters and receivers to the space) day started the day after I got back from spring break, on a Saturday. I was in the theatre at 9am, and crawled out of there close to midnight, only to run back again on Sunday at around the same time. Every day this week, Monday to Saturday, I’ll be there from 5PM ish to midnight to perfect this musical that everyone’s been working so hard on. Because it is so time-consuming, the people in theatre end up spending a lot of time together. We have meetings every week, and the rehearsal staff and cast spend four hours together four times a week for a month, rehearsing lines and learning choreography. It’s pretty intense stuff.
As a sound technician, there’s a specific set of tasks and skills I have to have in order to carry out my job effectively (it’s not paid btw). Pre-tech week, I have to make sure all the equipment I need is there for me. One of the stranger things I had to order online last week is a 100-pack of unlubricated condoms through Amazon prime. Before you go judging us, there’s a real reason!! To protect our delicate mic packs from gross actor sweat, we need something waterproof to cover the mics. Condoms are one-use, pretty transparent, waterproof, and stretchy! Still unclear as to whether all theatres use this genius idea, or it’s just Tufts.
During load-in, it’s my job to make sure my assistants know what’s going on, and that my sound board operator has control over the sensitivity of the mic, the levels, the equalization, and the instrument amplification. That means completely reconfiguring the rack and the sound cube in the theatre so that all mic transmitters have a corresponding receiver for the same frequency signal as is being transmitted.
Throughout tech/hell week, the sound team is in charge of making sure everyone sounds good. No one is louder than another, you can hear all the words to the songs, and there’s no weird feedback/buzzing going on. I know I sound like I know what I’m talking about, but I really don’t. Trust me on this one. I learn a lot of stuff I said on the fly just trying to randomly fix whatever has gone wrong. I’m not a physics major or a music major, my knowledge of radio frequencies and sound waves is very very limited. So, basically I’m just winging it.
That’s what I love about sound, though; I never know what’s going to happen next. You know those moments where you try something on a computer before a presentation and it works totally fine, but as soon as your audience comes in and you try to present your stuff, it stops working and you have no idea why? That’s my life every day. Sound equipment is soooo sensitive - anything from an unstable frequency to the level of humidity in the air can mess your your electrical signals. As a person who lives a pretty planned out life, working on a musical as a sound designer adds some spontaneity and fun stressors. It’s really super fun.
Something that I do wish would improve in the theatre community at Tufts, though, is the percentage of people of color involved. There are not many POC’s, and when it comes to Black members, there’s virtually none in theatre. Part of it has to do with a lot of the roles being made for White cast members, because many of the productions were written a long time ago when racism was more blatant and socially sanctioned than before. POC cast members just won’t fit the voice range. Another factor I think is just the lack of representation we currently have in theatre. It can be discouraging for new POC members to approach the theatre community if they don’t see people who look like them.
This has diverged a lot from talking about tech/hell week, but I wanted to give you a critical flavor of theatre at Tufts. As usual, if any prospective students have questions about anything, find me on Facebook as Raimy Shin!!
As I was deciding which college to apply to, Tufts checked all my boxes like no other. A huge part of what I wanted in a school was to have various…
Through my experiences in Tufts groups and clubs, I have quickly learned to appreciate the extent of collaboration between other Boston schools in…
Since I’ve come to Tufts I’ve been shocked by all of the great live music that I’ve been able to listen to. As both a composer and devout music lover…