To reduce a Sound Design to a brief audio track is to remove from the representation
of the Design all ideas regarding density, location, volume, interactivity, rhythm, tempo,
motivation, and immersion. To truly evaluate a Sound Design requires audio, images,
and most importantly, conversation. Please listen to these pieces, but please also
phone or email me for a more accurate evaluation.

To listen to a sample, click on the paragraphs in black.

This play, set in the 1990's, addresses the cultural relationship and ultimate
reconciliation between poor urban African Americans and educated & wealthy
African Americans. This second group of African Americans has adapted themselves
to fit into the 'white' world, and this merger formed the basis for the opening of the play,
which is a rousing rendition of 'Hail Hail, the Gang's All Here.'

This closing piece features another performance of the same song, but instead
of being performed by a collegiate choral group, this is performed by a group
of neighbors, singing as they paint a house, a gesture of community strength
and civil disobedience. This piece started sounding as if it were in the distance,
and it gradually moved towards the forefront of our awareness, transitioning
directly into the curtain call.

The play centers on Priscilla, and the setting moves between her bedroom and inside
her head, a distinction that blurs as the play develops. The production had a flowing, poetic
feel, that was furthered by the Sound Design.

Selection 1

Selection 2

Selection 3

Selection 4

Selection 5

Selection 6

Delirium for Two is a rarely-performed two-person Ionesco play in which an old couple
believes that they are trapped within the confines of their apartment for 17 years while a
war rages on their street. I sought to create an environment that was both surreally
beautiful and hauntingly scary.

In this production, we sought to explore the spirituality (or lack thereof) of the
characters in the play; those ideas led me to move away from music that would identify
period/geographical facts and more towards a sound that captured both the yearning
of the characters and their respective flaws. This piece of music was the opening of
the production.

The prologue for Julia Whitworth's production of Hamlet found the actors dancing a
dirge-like pantomime of the events that immediately precede the action of the play (the
funeral of the King, Claudius's marriage to Gertrude, and Hamlet's relationship with
Ophelia), and we were also interested in keeping the Fortinbras subplot present. To that
end, at various points throughout the play, I used distressed recorded text to maintain the
threat from Norway that hangs over Denmark, even as the characters try to ignore it. At
other points in the text, I incorporated radio static into the underscoring of Hamlet's
monologues to maintain the Fortinbras subplot and its significance to Hamlet.

The music was written to be cleansing and calming, giving the audience a sense of
security that would soon be broken by the characters in the play. Just as the women in
the play represent a part of the American South in which true meaning lies below
layers of artifice, this music worked with the other design elements to form an artificial
coat of pleasantry for the play.

The original ideas for the score for The Master and Margarita evolved independent of
conversations with the director. This composite piece reflects a survey of the music
written for The Master and Margarita. It contains a sampling of music from the first two
acts, as scenes quickly shift back and forth between Moscow and Jerusalem.

After Ashley tracks the progress of the teenage son of a murdered woman as he works
his way through the landscape of the American media.

To create 'Down to Mother', I collaborated with rapper Shuv. I wrote all of the music,
and he did all of the vocal work.

This piece of music served as the introduction to one of the fictional television shows
featured in the play. The TV program is a crime show, and at the beginning of the
show, this music plays as the voices come from loudspeakers scattered throughout
the theatre.

This piece is Cassandra's song from my design for The Trojan Women. The design
was spare in terms of elements, but each element was used with precision to create a
world that was contemporary and able to tell a timeless story. Towards the end of the
song, the other women join Cassandra, chanting and mumbling. Unfortunately, I don't
have a recording with voice.

I sought to create tension between the majesty of the music and the intimacy of the
scenework. With most of the music for Othello, I layered additional music and sound on
top of previously-made classical and commercial recordings.

Prologue

End of Act 1

A Transition

Another Transition

Yet Another Transition

Insurrection: Holding History is a funny, thoughtful, and terrifying play about an African
American man who goes back in time to witness Nat Turner's slave insurrection.
When the bed carrying the student back in time kills the slave owner, all of the slaves
surround the bed and break into this song. Unfortunately, this recording does not
include the vocal part.

Antony and Cleopatra was a production laced with mechanical expressionism. With
director Annie Dorsen, I fashioned a world that was identified not only by the quality
of sound, but by the quantity of sound. What you are listening to is a sound and music
composite using elements of my design.

The music and sound for the Prince of Homburg vacillated back and forth between a
grand, sweeping environment and a fragile, ethereal environment. Director David
Kennedy and I decided to edit Mahler symphonies to realize the majestic side of the
design, and I used synthesizers to write the atmospheric underscoring.

In our production of All My Sons, we chose to stage the storm that breaks the tree. With
the opening music, I sought to create an environment that spoke of the sadness
hanging over the family as well as the potential of the storm we ware about to see.

Red Herring is a Film Noir comedy, and I tried to stay close to the roots of the era.

Curtain Call

A Transition

Buffalo Soldier sought to expose issues of race and cultural identity set against a
backdrop of the American West at the end of the 19th century. The music is a
synthesis of steel string acoustic guitar and native flute, designed to create a
seamless mesh of sound that, while referring both to music of the American West
and to Native American music, was clearly speaking with its own voice.

Intimate Apparel is set in Harlem in the 1930s. The text calls for one of the characters
to play ragtime piano live on stage. In writing the music, I wanted to retain the feel of
ragtime, but also reflect the image of the scenery, which seemed to float, suspended
from the ceiling. This music is very loose in terms of key, resulting in music that
feels a little loose, a little drunk.

This piece is a quick rag.

This piece is a slow drag.

This piece is a slow drag, and was written for the section of the play when the character
is being seduced by a man straddling her from behind. I wrote the right hand line in such
a way that the character can reach behind her to touch her seducer every other bar,
creating another opportunity for characterization in the scene.

Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy, is a satiric adaptation of the 1987 thriller. The play
seeks to skewer the two-dimensionality of how women are portrayed in art by focusing
on the Grecian scale of the themes. To support these ideas, I created underscoring and
music for the world premiere of this play, which was performed on a unit set in 70 minutes.

This link takes you to the mp3 file.

This link takes you to a guide to explain the mp3.

Martin Desjardins & I co-designed and co-scored The Velvet Sky, directed by Rebecca
Bayla Taichman. This music was written for a scene that takes place in three nightclubs
simultaneously. Each club had different music and lighting, but we wanted to give the
impression of all three events happening at the same time. The music shifts from club to
club without losing its beat.

House of Desires is a colonial Mexican comedy set in Spain. In writing the music, I drew freely
from baroque style and Spanish folk themes. I wrote the music intending for it to be performed
by a live ensemble of musicians, but did not make a recording of the ensemble. These audio
tracks were sequenced on a computer, and were used in rehearsals.

This piece played at the top of Act I.

This piece played at the top of Act II.

This is a transition between scenes.

Defying Gravity examines how people address their fears and responsibilities within the context
of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. The opening of our production found the cast appearing
to float through space. As they moved, they shifted in and out of character, slowly creating the
second image, that of a dangerous circus stunt involving a ladder. This stunt is a recurring symbol
throughout the text, and in our prologue, the young girl tries three times to overcome her fear
of heights to climb the ladder. Upon her third failure, the entire image deteriorates and shifts into
the first monologue, which was underscored with the Satie music.

This 'As You Like It' is set in a mental institution in the late 1950s. When the characters
leave the court for the forest of Arden, they leave an oppressive and paranoid world for
a warm and natural environment. The design for the court featured a dense soundscape
of distortion, whereas Arden featured very little 'sound;' I opted instead to focus on the
'music' of the forest, working in a folky/country idiom. The members of the cast were
varied in terms of age (the youngest was 15), vocal training, and instrumental training,
and I worked with them all to teach the songs I wrote, which we recorded live before
one performance. While the recordings aren't perfect technically, they do capture the
atmosphere and heart of our forest of Arden.

The first song is 'Under the Greenwood Tree,' which Amiens plays by himself.

'If It Do Come to Pass' - Jacques has written alternate lyrics to 'Under the Greenwood
Tree.' He sings (and plays mandolin) while Amiens reprises his guitar part.

'Blow Blow Thou Winter Wind' - Amiens sings while the rest of the company dines,
and they join in as the song develops.

'What Shall He Have that Killed the Deer?' - Amiens, Corin, and Touchstone sing this
quick piece, which was written to be a sudden and energetic break between two
down-tempo scenes.

'It Was a Lover and His Lass' - Audrey and Phobe begin this song, singing to Touchstone
on an empty stage. As the song progresses, more characters enter and sing. By the
song's end, the entire company is on stage. Having just sung a cathartic song, they're
now ready for the resolution that the last scene of the play brings.

In one pivotal scene of August Wilson's 'Gem of the Ocean,' Citizen Barlow goes on a redemptive
& metaphoric journey to the City of Bones. The city is populated by the souls of the Africans
who died during the middle passage during slavery, and I used the human voice as the
predominant element of the score. This piece is a distillation of the main ideas of Citizen's
journey, and it features voices speaking to Citizen, voices forming a chorus to underscore his
psychological experience, and voices creating the aural landscape of the journey.

Clownzilla is Southern California's only clown troupe, and 'Clownzilla: A Holiday Extravaganza' is
their second full-length show. Early on in the process, I realized that what I was trying to do was
give the clowns (who do not speak) a voice. This idea led directly to the idea to create all of the
original music using the human voice. I assembled all of the musical elements and then worked in
the rehearsal hall to develop the design and score. The time I spent in rehearsal led to an intricate
and tightly composed score that seemed to seamlessly interact with the clowns. The result is a
silly and energetic original clown piece, in the vaudeville tradition.

This is a transition piece between scenes.

This music scored a clown doing an impression of George W. Bush. While the clown pantomimed
iconic hand and head gestures, the video projector displayed some of our President's more notable
quotations.

Easter featured the clowns dressed as bunnies & hopping around the stage. Towards the end of
the piece, one bunny poops out a decorated egg for another bunny.

To celebrate 'Orange County,' the four female clowns pranced about the stage, answering
mobile phones and poking their obviously fake breasts. When they get into a car accident from
talking on the phone too much, their breasts function as airbags, saving their lives.

At the end of the play, the clown family is reunited in a beautiful angelic moment.

The characters in Dark of the Moon sing many songs throughout the play, and while some
of the songs have already been written, many have not. Here are three songs that the
cast performed live on stage. The text for the songs is written into the play, but the music
is all original. These songs are in order of performance.

The musicians play 'Smokey Mountain Gal' to open the dance in the town square.

Before the townsfolk start their dance, Barbara sings 'Barbara and the Witch Boy.'

At the beginning of Scene 4, Uncle Smelicue leads some of the cast in 'John Williams.'

The Heiress is a psychologic drama about a wealthy & homely young woman. I wrote
a score for solo cello.

Here is a transition piece.

Here is another transition piece.

Here is a third transition piece.

Here is a fourth transition piece.

Here is the final transition piece.

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