Book of Mormon
Hasa Diga Ebowai – could be a good expression for the year 2020. It’s also one of the most memorable songs from Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone’s smash hit musical Book of Mormon. This musical, first staged in 2011, was initially developed as early as 2003, when South Park’s Matt Stone and Trey Parker began collaborating. Eight years later the musical was staged in New York to immediate and profound success - a musical satire of The Church of Latter Day Saints with its unique set of beliefs and its foothold in modern American society.
“Whilst it’s incredibly long run’s in Melbourne and Sydney are often noted, what people forget is the absolutely massive tenures of some of the original crew”
For several years, the show commanded notoriously high ticket prices, reflecting its enormous popularity. Running for 9 years, the show has grossed over $500 million dollars worldwide, making it one of the most commercially successful musicals of all time. It is in fact, Broadway’s 14th longest running show.
Its Australian tour was no exception to its extraordinary success. Premiering in 2017, Book of Mormon sold out months in advance and would open in Melbourne’s iconic Princess Theatre, now the home of Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. It would break records in sales unseen since the heady days of the first tour of The Phantom of The Opera, going on to play 432 virtually sold out shows in Melbourne from the 17th of January 2017 to the 4th of February 2018; with every promise of a return season being just as successful.
For its Australian tour, System Sound was contracted to provide staff, equipment and engineering by the local producers, The Gordon Frost Organisation. Among others, our Designer David Greasley and operators Louise Hall and Chris Pratt would form the core of this team.
Whilst it’s incredibly long run’s in Melbourne and Sydney are often noted, what people don’t know about are the absolutely massive tenures of some of the original crew, like Sound Head of Department, Chris Pratt and former Deputy Head, Louise Hall, who toured with the show for the most of the almost four years it ran.
Louise, who opened the show would only leave three seasons before its conclusion in Auckland as she was chosen to open the return production of Billy Elliot as Head of Sound. Her tenure on Mormon spanned a huge period of almost 3 years and 973 shows from Melbourne to Brisbane. Chris who stayed on to open Auckland, would finish up after a gigantic 1122 shows.
For some basic maths, that’s a 2.5 hr show, 1122 times, making 2,898.5 hours of pure musical theatre. That doesn’t include the full 5 hour show calls themselves.
Either way. It’s a lot of Mormon. Good thing they both love show tunes!
For Chris, it also started some months before with a trip at the request of the sound designer, Brian Ronan, to learn the Mormon mix. Book of Mormon, aside from being an extremely busy show and musically dynamic, is incredibly focused on the clarity and delivery of lines, particularly jokes. In October of 2016, Chris was flown to New York to learn Mormon from the original team, staying with them for two whole weeks observing and practicing the mix and learning about the sound system.
From there he would travel directly to our production of Les Misérables in Dubai, and then directly to the Book of Mormon’s first load in - the preparatory work having been done at System Sound by our team including Dave Tonion and David Greasley, System’s appointed Australian Associate Designer.
Sound Designer, Brian Ronan, also the designer of the Australian Tour of Beautiful: The Carol King Story, has an extensive theatrical resume having been in Broadway sound design for decades and having engineered many recognisable productions. These include Mean Girls, Lazarus, American Idiot, Nice Work If You Can Get It and Spring awakening among 35 other Broadway productions.
The system itself is fundamentally L-ACOUSTICS based, with classic DVDOSC line arrays making up the left and right arrays and KARA speakers making up the uniquely long centre hang for a powerful band and vocal centre/dow-speak combination. LA-4X amplifiers power the system and it is driven with a combination of and DiGiCo SD7t mixer out front and Digico SD10-RE as a processor backstage. The delays and surrounds are powerful L’acoustics X8’s and d&b E8’s with the intent that all seats in the house hear the full sound even out of shot from all of the main line-arrays and with the ability to produce loud sound effects such as a commanding voice-of-God from behind the audience.
The performers’ mics are unique in that they are a combination of DPA4061 miniature mics, MKE-1 & MKE’2 selected for their particular qualities, for each performer. Tap mics are also used, with MKE-2’s run down both legs of the Mormon boys for “Turn It Off”.
Super Spookey-Wookey!
What stands out about this sound design approach is that the designer has chosen to focus on having very high-quality mics, speakers, and processing and then, after careful aural tuning, to allow the system to run as naturally as possible. Unlike in many new shows, the processing and EQ are largely flat which is partly why the show has such a clear and natural sound, even when it’s pushed to rock and roll levels in “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream”. Brian’s approach puts trust on the quality of the components of his system and teams to achieve the best result.
Whilst the system itself is of very high quality, it is the extraordinary talent and commitment of the people behind the production that makes it outstanding.
Brian Ronan sent Design Associate Cody Spencer to represent him during the set-up and production period of the show, and he worked closely with Chris Pratt, HOD to help reproduce the exact sound achieved on Broadway.
Dave Greasley (Associate Sound Designer), Evan Drill (Production Sound Engineer), Brooke Paterson (Sound Swing), Claire Rhodes (Head of Radios) and Tom Beaumont (Deputy Head of Department)
For the Australia/NZ tour, our wonderful engineer, Dave Greasley was appointed Associate Designer, engineering and designing the show in conjunction with the original team for each venue as well as supervising and managing the team on the ground for each staging. Dave Greasley has worked with us for 27 years. He started on the production of High Society, and has since moved on from operating a number of our most successful shows to designing and engineering productions such as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in Sydney for which he received a number of award nominations. Having been the Associate Designer on a number of high profile shows such as Les Miserables, Phantom, and Billy, he was the perfect man for the job when Book of Mormon came up!
Chris Pratt and Louise Hall have formed the heart of the team for the majority of the tour, having both opened the show, but also having toured with it for the majority of its tour. In Melbourne, Georgia Boreham opened and set-up the radios behind the show, an extensive and demanding process with over 40 channels being used in custom configurations and with an active plot. Taking over from her from Sydney onwards was the lovely Claire Rhodes who has remained with the show until it’s recent postponement.
During the Melbourne season, seasoned operator Anto Shaw took over for Louise for a few weeks making him one of the just four operators to mix the show during its Australian run. When Louise left to open Billy Elliot as Head of Department, Tom Beaumont would replace her. Tom, fresh off the national tour of The Rocky Horror Show, would ultimately mix through until New Zealand.
Radio’s as previously mentioned, were managed by Claire Rhodes, seen on the right checking through the lot before a show! Claire has a Bachelor of Entertainment Industries at QUT and a Diploma in Live Production and Technical Services at NIDA and is relatively new to the industry coming straight from Beautiful: The Carole King Story. Mormon marks her 6th professional musical, and her first for System Sound, but having done great work with us we are sure there is a big career ahead of her! She’s also very kindly provided us a number of photos available on the left of some of the radios and more great team shots. Thank you Claire!
Mic’s laid out carefully in their protective latex covers
General Butt Fucking Naked’s eyepatch Mic
Double mics for the key players!
Louise mixing on the SD7t
Louise Hall has done great work for us for a number of years having started in sound all the way back in 2005. Her first show with us was Billy Elliot which coincidentally was also Chris’s first show with us too! Since then she’s worked for us on the Australian premiere of Jersey Boys, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Georgie Girl and finally the recent tour as Head of Department on Billy Elliot - but she still quotes Book of Mormon as her favourite to work on so far!
Chris also started around the early 2000s with Priscilla Queen of The Desert and would go on to work for us on Billy, Cats - his first tour, Jersey Boys, Chicago, Wicked, Phantom of The Opera, Les Mis, West Side Story and The Production Company’s Nice Work If You Can Get It. I’m exhausted just typing that! Chris’ favourite show has been working on The Production Company shows for the sheer challenge of the undertaking - Production Company shows have two tech runs before opening and have to be perfect so are not for the faint of heart! Thanks for contributing some great photos to the article Chris!
It goes without saying we’d like to thank and congratulate Chris and Louise both for their extraordinary commitment and hard work over this tour, their attention to detail, consistency and hard work has made this one of our smoothest running shows ever.
We’d also like to say a big congratulations to Tom Beaumont for so capably taking the reigns as Deputy Head of Department for the final three stops of the tour, mixing over 100 shows and fitting into the role beautifully. Tom has worked previously for us on Georgie Girl and Matilda.
Last but not least, thanks to our long time System Sound family member Evan Drill, who has operated countless shows including Love Never Dies, Legally Blonde, Kinky Boots and others and worked as Production Sound Engineer for Mormon in several cities supporting the crew and helping build the show’s transfers from the warehouse to doing the installs as well - couldn’t have done it without you mate!
It has been said that after 9/11, Mel Brooks The Producers single-handedly saved musical theatre in Broadway, bringing in solid houses in a time when people were afraid to leave their homes. Going forward we know Mormon too will be able to rebound with the industry and we all look forward to seeing it thrive once again. Until then, check out these great shots of a great team and their times on this wonderful show. We’re so proud of all the work they’ve done and so happy to have been a part of such a successful and joy-bringing piece of theatre.
Also a special thanks to all the swings that supported the team: Jackson Scandrett, Carley Gagliardi, Sally Hitchcock, Courtney Weaver, “Ghio” Ghiovanna De Oliveira, Jade Salangsang, Tanieka Stones, Ollie Miller, Ben Nelson, Gilroy Valladarez and Brooke Paterson.
A brief hiatus - Come From Away
It has been a joy to work with Newtheatricals on Come From Away’s Australian premiere season and today we’d like to celebrate the incredible achievements of our team, particularly the two sound crew who have made this challenging and technically unique show possible.
Come From Away, a Canadian musical written way back in 2013 and first premiered at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, opened on the 30th 0f July 2019 to full houses and immediately captured Melbourne audiences hearts. The factually inspired story tells of 38 planes grounded in Newfoundland during the 9/11 attacks and the heart-warming stories of the people that welcomed them into their town and made them honorary Newfoundlanders in the process. Come From Away would go on to sell out consistently during a period where many well heeled productions in Melbourne have been struggling to fill seats, telling of it’s universal appeal.
Drawing much complimentary attention, is the fact that the show itself if superbly directed around what is essentially a very minimal set and cast. The set itself is static, with no moving parts other than the very ordinary chairs that the cast use to imply and create settings throughout the show. The cast itself is composed of just 12 people and the band similarly, is just 8 musicians including the musical director, Luke Hunter.
This relatively simple show - in both appearance and storyline, belies an extraordinary amount of technical effort that, to the design of the original Broadway production helps create a stunningly coherent vocal quality for performers, and creates a warm and rich musical quality with composers Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s catchy and emotive original folk score.
The sound system itself is highly complex and comprehensive in coverage for the entire audience, employing a vast array of the highest quality D&B speakers in conjunction with the stunning Avid Venue S6L console. To be specific 91 speakers! 26 of these were the main left and right line arrays - D&B Y8’s. There is also a centre hang of the compact but powerful T10’s. The show was equally amply supplied with subwoofers, with 10 V-subs, four below the stage and 6 hanging on the truss above the audience.
The show also has a surprisingly large count of wireless with 48 radio channels, 38 wireless mics, the twelve cast wearing two radio mic packs each in case of technical failure (and also due to the cast not leaving the stage during the entire performance) and 21 channels of wireless for roving musicians with wireless instruments and in ear monitors for the band. The headset microphones worn were the superb DPA 4066 boom microphones which were customised by hand to perfectly fit each performer, firstly at our warehouse by Sally Hitchcock and Natalie Riordan and thereafter by the show’s crew, being the aforementioned Nat and Anto Shaw.
But enough about the equipment, time to talk about the people behind putting this show together. As we assembled the system to designer Gareth Owen’s specifications, the set-up had two late arrivals, the main system of speakers from Germany, and also its supervisor, Julian Spink. Fortunately, associate designer of Book of Mormon, Dave Greasley kindly spearheaded the build with the team, having to leave directly to set-up Book of Mormon in Adelaide as both Julian and Gareth’s representative Russell Godwin arrived just in time for the bump in at the Comedy Theatre. Also deserving a special mention during this period is Shawn Unsworth as technical build crew and David Letch, who as Production Sound Engineer helped assemble and plan much of the system, going on to installing it and getting it open with the show crew and designers. The speakers, before mentioned, would arrive from Germany the day after opening when the crew would have to come in and completely swap the PA out from the temporarily hired speakers to the new system… on their day off!
Anto as Head of Department, opened the show, learning what turned out to be a very intense mix by any operators standards whilst juggling the various demands of management, band concerns, fader flipping and an international designer at the same time. Not only does this show have 2222 Qlab cues, but also such a fast and unrelenting barrage of desk automation cues that the operator has to mix the show whilst firing cues with a foot pedal. Whilst this practice exists - rarely - this is certainly the first instance where it was entirely necessitated by the sheer speed of the shows design. Natalie Riordan, Deputy Head of Department would learn the mix following opening in incredible speed -guaranteeing the shows safety as quickly as possible. Nat was also able to master School of Rock in record speed so she was naturally the perfect person for this show - one of the most difficult we’re aware of.
The mixing console to compound issues further is uniquely situated at the back of the grand circle of the theatre, as far away and high above the stage as possible. This maximises the available premium seats for the producer, maximising profits. See below photo for the view, if one stands on ones toes to see above the mixing console!
Anthony “Anto” Shaw, (Head of Department) recently having come off Jersey Boy’s second Australian tour, has a long history engineering and operating some of System Sound’s largest shows, some of Australia’s most recognisable productions. Anto started with System Sound in 2005 on a show Stuff Happens, coincidentally both at The Comedy Theatre, but also produced by Come From Away’s Australian producer, Rodney Rigby! This was followed touring with We Will Rock you briefly sojourning as a Head of Video, operating both the LED screens and managing the media servers. In 2007 he worked with Dave Letch on a fabulous but unfortunately short season of Spamalot - the first show to bring Digico’s T (theatre specific) software to Australia on the D5T console. Anto then opened Jersey Boy’s in 2009 and would go onto operate the Australian tour of Wicked for 5 years, travelling Asia and doing two full tours of Australia. This was the second last world tour to operate on a Cadac J-Type, alongside The Phantom of The Opera. Not counting the innumerable Production Company shows for System crammed between, Anto would also tour with Cirque Du Soleil and as before mentioned Jersey Boys 2.0 leading right up to this show. I think it’s fair to say he has quite the resumé and was one of just a very small group of people capable of doing Come From Away let alone with the skill that has helped us earn a great friendship with it’s English designers.
Natalie “Nat” Riordan, the Deputy Head of Department has an equally varied but also extraordinary career as a sound engineer for many theatrical productions. Starting in 2009, Nat would begin working with System Sound in 2012 on The Australian tour of Mary Poppins as Deputy Head of Sound for the Adelaide season. Come From Away marks Nat’s 8th show for System, having operated School of Rock, Mary Poppins, Strictly Ballroom, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels to name a few as well as independent of System, Ghost and the Australian premiere of American Idiot.
“The most challenging show that I’ve worked on was Strictly Ballroom, as we don’t originate many shows here in Australia, but it was also very exciting to be part of a Global Premiere. The most difficult mix I have learnt is definitely Cone From Away! It is also the show I am most proud to be a part of- we have a fantastic company, the show is beautifully orchestrated and tells an important story of kindness and compassion.” - Nat
We’re very proud of our crew and their achievements, especially on this show, seamlessly opening and maintaining a challenging show by all standards to the very highest level of quality possible. Not only audience, but fellow industry professionals comments about the outstanding sound and work being done by our crew is a great source of pride and positivity for us as a company and we can’t wait to see Come From Away back in action this August the 8th. Keeping fingers and toes crossed!
Also deserving a special mention are swings Shawn Unsworth and Sunil Chandra who have helped support the operators on CFA from day one.
See the below gallery of photos to get to know our team better and learn more about the show
Evita Closes In Melbourne
Today we’re sad but proud to announce the close of our involvement supporting the world tour of Evita, led by star operator and head of department, Emily Adams, up and coming deputy, Anthony Craythorn and experienced and ever charming head of radios, Sally Hitchcock. The primary system was provided by Orbital Sound but engineered for Australia by Associate Designer Shelly Lee in conjunction with System Sound. Also a very special congratulations to our dear friend Tina Arena for an outstanding performance no one will forget.
Evita broke records for The Arts Centre Melbourne, becoming the longest running and highest grossing production in their history
Opera In The Markets
For one memorable night a year, the historic Queen Victoria Market is transformed into a theatre like no other - the famous fruit & veg stalls will make way for front stalls as Opera in the Market takes centre stage. The evening was hosted by Guy Noble and featured performers Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Taryn Fiebig, Milijana Nikolic, Rosario La Spina. Sound was mixed by our Kelvin Gedye and designed in collaboration with John Scandrett. Stage sound technician was Greg Blades. We trialed CQ-1 clusters this year for wider coverage with an expanded audience area and to great success. Despite the occasional truck passing the sheds actually have a great acoustic which the audience and performers alike enjoy!
Kelvin Gedye mixes on our Venue Profile mixing console
Vibrant lighting and iconic architecture make for a spectacular stage
Audiences wait for the show to commence
Collecting our Schoeps mics at the end of the night
With so many performers onstage space is tight and managing balance correctly between over 60 microphones essential
System Sound engineers Symphony Under The Stars
We’re very pleased to announce the 26th ongoing year of engineering The Hong Kong Philharmonic’s “Symphony Under The Stars” conducted by maestro Jaap van Zweden.
Repertoire included Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz, Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, a Haydn Trumpet Concerto, Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Cellos and John Williams’ Star Wars Theme.
Over the years of involvement with HKPhil we have pioneered many kinds of speaker installations in various outdoor locations, from Happy Valley Racecourse to the current location at Central Harbourfront Event Space. Our aim is to provide the best possible sound coverage to the 18,000+ patrons that attend this SWIRE sponsored (free of charge) orchestral performance each year,
With our sound team backstage, at front of house, monitoring the listening plane at up to 250 meters from stage during the performance, we ensure consistency using wireless remote control of distributed speaker systems.
Tom Lee Music supplied the d&b audiotechnik based sound reinforcement system and Yamaha Rivage PM10 mixing console whilst System supplied a premium selection of Schoeps, Neumann, Sennheiser and DPA microphones .
The 80+ piece orchestra was mixed using a bespoke zone spatialisation technique with a DME-64 preprogrammed specifically for this event by System Sound.
Speakers for the system included d&b J-Array, V8 & V10 point source, Meyer UPA-1P and five rings of eight d&b audiotechnik M4 delay speakers, matrixed as stereo.
The performance was operated by engineer Julian Spink.
School of Rock opens at Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne
After many months of preparation and several weeks of installation and technical rehearsals, we’re pleased to announce that School of Rock has opened to rave reviews with a flawless technical execution by our crew.
Once again a proud achievement between our staff and good friends from England, Adam Fisher and Mick Potter the original sound designers. We look forward to a suscessful season and many more smooth openings as School of Rock tours Asia and Australia.
School of Rock Previewing
We’re excited to announce that School of Rock is now previewing and playing to packed houses - the countdown to opening night has begun! We are delighted to once again be working with Adam Fisher, Associate Designer of Sound on behalf of Sound Designer, Mick Potter.
The design features his signature combination of Meyer Sound’s premium LEOPARD line arrays and 900LFC subs with MINA’s, MELODIE's and UPJ's, along with 112 D&B Audiotechnik delay and surround speakers providing a crystal clear but also rocking sound with high intelligibility of voice in all moments of the show. Our wireless system is a high quality combination of Sennheiser Transmitters and Receivers, and DPA’s 4066 boom mics for optimum gain before feedback and incomparable quality of audio. This is also thanks to the hard work of our extremely capable sound team which is comprised of the very experienced Simon Gregory as Head of Department, Deputy Natalie Riordan and Jess Frost in charge of radios.
Our team has worked tirelessly through the production period to ensure all shows and rehearsals have been carried out with absolute precision and professionalism led by our supervisor, Shelly Lee and production sound technician David Letch.
School of Rock premieres on the 9th of November.
For ticketing and show information please see au.schoolofrockthemusical.com
A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder
System Sound is proud to be part of The Production Company’s A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder at The Art Center Melbourne’s Playhouse Theatre. This exciting and hilarious production is Directed by Rodger Hodgman, with Choreography by Dana Jolly and Set and Lighting designs by Christina Smith and Matt Scott and Sound Design by the System Sound team - Peter Grubb, John Scandrett and Kelvin Gedye. Sound operator is the talented Paul Tilley with stage sound technicians Carley Gagliardi and Jackson Scandrett.
Our sound designers have chosen a PA system using KV2 Audio’s ESR215mkII with Meyer Sound’s M1-D Line Arrays and 600-HP subwoofers for a high definition sound. Our digital mixing platform is the SD10T by Digico and radio systems by Sennheiser with miniature microphones by DPA and Countryman. Our star cast features Mitchell Butel And Chris Ryan with supporting roles by Nancye Hayes, Alinta Chidzey and Genevieve Kingsford. Playing from the 27th of October to the 18th of November.
A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder