A bit of NY nostalgia for a Friday evening

[John Leonard]

Clearing out some drawers, I came across these ancient pictures. Older sound folk may get misty eyed at the Piaf kit, youngsters may chuckle at the mix of playback kit in the Choices pictures, High Line walkers may like to know what it looked like in its abandoned state, electricians may gasp at the side-stage patch and the Super-Trouper, young ladies may swoon at the handsome, debonair chap working in his garret with the DT48s clamped firmly to his skull and we can all take a moment to reflect on an iconic sight from the past.

Enjoy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/64602290@N04/sets/72157631623635397/

John

[John Huntington]

Nice! What was the venue?

I never really liked the WTC towers, but I get a bit misty eyed whenever
I see pics of them now...

John

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www.controlgeek.net

[John Leonard]

The theatre was The Plymouth. I was in the newly refurbished lower-buy of Broadway (Milford Plaza) and for the first four days all I saw was the sidewalk between the hotel and the theatre. Once off the leash - just for one day - I took something like six rolls of film in a long walk that went from Central Park to Liberty Island and took in the three tall buildings on the way.

The Choices kit - RSC workshops for NY school kids - was either at CSC, down on 13th, or the now defunct Theatre Of The Open Eye at 89th & Broadway, I think.

Regards,

John

[Jeremy Lee]

Nice! I especially like the "Normal/ Special" switch on the Piaf console. Reminds me of this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/crimsonslug/499481508/

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Jeremy Lee
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http://www.jjlee.com

[mackerr]

John, who made all those NAB carts in the shot with the Yamah 1516?
what was the show? I made thousands of carts for B'way shows back in
the day, just wondering if I made those?

Mac

[John Leonard]

Hi Matt,

No, I made those with my own fair hand, I'm afraid. (Feel free to skip the rest.)

Choices was a workshop devised by the education department of the Royal Shakespeare Company for public school kids in New York, where we did a two hour workshop to a hundred or so reluctant teenagers to introduce them to the various ways that a Shakespeare play can be presented. The choices were given to the kids, within certain parameters: select a period, and then choose sound, lighting, costume and props, so there had to be a degree of preparation as this was long before computer storage and instant recall. I traveled with a stock of effects on cart, a couple of pre-prepared CD-Rs ($50 a piece for the discs and $50/hour for the transfer from a guy with a new-fangled Yamaha CD-R writer with a separate computer for writing the index code), some commercially available sound effects CDs, and my own stuff on DAT and cassette. The carts tended to be long backgrounds - rain and thunder, wind, sea, birdsong, etc., that I could run whilst sorting through the rest of the stuff to find the spot effects that the kids shouted out.

I don't think I was ever stumped for a sound during the four or so years that we did the workshops and I have no idea whether we made much of a difference, although I remember vividly one occasion where a young girl stumbled her way through Lady Macbeth's "Unsex me here" speech and who then, after ten minutes or so having the meaning explained to her and a quick lesson in how to read Shakespeare, proceeded to give a performance that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I also remember, almost as vividly, the staged fight scenes that we used to end the sessions with, usually with musical accompaniment from whichever rock group happened to be in vogue at the time. This usually happened after the teachers, who, as a man, had fled once they'd delivered their charges to the venue, returned to pick up the pieces, hoping that we weren't going to sue. What they saw was a well-rehearsed piece of staged mayhem whilst Bon Jovi's 'You Give Love A Bad Name' blasted out of the PA system. Not quite what they were expecting, I guess.

It was hard work - two of those a day, trying to engage kids who were being educated at schools like Aviation High on Long Island and generally had no interest in theatre in general and Shakespeare in particular and who really didn't get this bunch of Brits with funny accents was not an easy ride. We learned how to get their attention pretty quickly though, and the sight of a towering, glowering teenager plucked from the crowd, decked out in cloak and crown and clutching a huge (real) broadsword tended to quell the laughter from his fiends pretty quickly. Similarly, a sassy Brooklyn gal in designer jacket and acres of bling drew admiring comments from her coterie. This only backfired once, when the main presenter tried to get a nice girl with Italian ancestry up onstage to act and was resoundingly rebuffed with: 'Don't touch the coat; it's worth more than you are.." On making a few enquiries, we were directed to take notice of the black town-car complete with chauffeur, parked outside between the school busses: we left her alone.

Bet you're sorry you asked now...

John

[Chip]

Not at all, You spin a good yarn for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Chip 1