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Paul Kolnik
raced downstairs to fix the problem
while the show was delayed for a
few minutes.
Having an audio blunder in previews
is one thing, but on opening
night it is an entirely different matter.
That’s a nerve-wracking nightmare.
Sound Designer Dan Moses
Schreier (Xanadu) recalls such a situation
from a production he chooses
not to name. “The sound design had
a large sampler-based component to
it,” he explains. “I had two computerbased
samplers running in tandem,
just in case one of the computers
failed. Each computer/sampler was
plugged into a separate UPS [uninterrupted
power supply] in case of a
power surge or failure.”
Elisabeth Withers-Mendes and Fantasia (center) and company in The Color Purple
The show ran through two weeks
of previews without a hitch…until
opening night. “As we were testing
out the system to open the house,
the first computer started up, then
abruptly shut down about a minute
into the startup process,” remarks
Schreier. “Then we went to the backup
computer, and the computer
would not boot up at all. After much
diagnostic drama, it turned out that
both UPSs had failed at the same
time, and neither had showed any
sign of failure. The problem was
fixed by simply plugging each computer
directly into the nearest wall
sockets, and we got through the
show. That night was a lot of fun,” he
adds sarcastically.
Isn’t technology grand?
Bryan Reesman is a freelance writer who
has been published in the New York
Times, Billboard and Moviemaker.
www.stage-directions.com • November 2007 29