The Revolutionists

By Lauren Gunderson

A Hollins Theatre Institute Spotlight Reading Series Production

Directed by Lauren Brooke Ellis

The Revolutionists was a play put on as part of the Hollins Theatre Institute's new Spotlight Reading Series, a series of plays presented as enhanced staged readings. For this reading, I served as the stage manager, sound designer, program designer, and the props assistant. Although it was a simple sound design, I created an opening cue that set the scene for the top of the show (audio file below). This design featured lots of repetitious pieces that were then modified each time they were used. 

Revolutionists Opening Cue
00:00 / 00:37

Pre-Show

In our initial meetings, Todd Ristau and I talked about how the sound had to demonstrate the passage of time from 1985 to 2005 and 2005 to 2015 between acts to prevent confusion so that the audience could easily transition from act to act. We went through several different versions of these mashups, including some that were programmed in QLab. Eventually, I decided to create the files in Adobe Audition. I did research on the Billboard Top 100 Hits Chart of each year from 1985 to 2015. Although I didn’t use the most popular song of each year, I tried to use songs that would be recognizable to the majority of audience members. It was fun to come to performances and hear the cast and crew singing along to the songs they all knew by heart.

Stage Management

In our initial meetings, Todd Ristau and I talked about how the sound had to demonstrate the passage of time from 1985 to 2005 and 2005 to 2015 between acts to prevent confusion so that the audience could easily transition from act to act. We went through several different versions of these mashups, including some that were programmed in QLab. Eventually, I decided to create the files in Adobe Audition. I did research on the Billboard Top 100 Hits Chart of each year from 1985 to 2015. Although I didn’t use the most popular song of each year, I tried to use songs that would be recognizable to the majority of audience members. It was fun to come to performances and hear the cast and crew singing along to the songs they all knew by heart.