Gathering Light
A devised Collection of connections
Hollins Theatre Institute
Directed by Lauren Brooke Ellis & Susie Young


Gathering Light was a devised work created to be performed live within COVID restrictions. It featured a series of original pieces centered around social justice and the human experience with audience participation. As the sound designer, I worked hand in hand with the directors to create soundscapes that evoked a spontaneous reaction. Since the show was outdoors and didn't have a script there were no cue sheets.
Soundscapes
Beep Boop

This piece was meant to discuss the amount of news and social media we take in on a daily basis. I worked with the actors of the piece to create a soundscape that featured notable voices weaved together with a symphony of social media sound effects. As the actors got more and more overwhelmed by the media they were taking in, the soundscape crescendoed to audibly align with their breakdowns. The video design was created by Kiah Kayser. The image to the left is the Audition session of the sound design for Beep Boop.
Bee BoopAnna Johnson
00:00 / 02:37
*Video Design by Kiah Kayser
Video Games

Video Games UnderscoreAnna Johnson
00:00 / 02:09
This piece was the accompaniment to a vignette where the audience got to choose how a video game character completed an obstacle course. The obstacle course featured Super Mario looking blocks that the actors interacted with. I worked with the actors to create a soundscape that featured a variety of classic video game sound effects that featured iconic Super Mario characters’ voices so the audience could easily figure out the environment of this vignette.
Heartbeat
This piece accompanied a personal story of an actor’s grandma dying on Hanukkah. The soundscape featured several Klezmer songs layered and interwoven to create a soundtrack to her monologue that had moments of sadness, nostalgia and eventually love. During her performance, the actor and writer of the piece pounded her hand against her chest to mimic a heartbeat which is why the sound of a heartbeat can be heard in the piece. The heartbeat is loud in some points and incredibly faint in others to show the progression of the actor’s emotions throughout the course of her monologue.
Heartbeat
00:00 / 04:26

Strings

StringsAnna Johnson
00:00 / 02:07