Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story
by Alan Janes
Directed by Suzanne Agins
by Alan Janes
Directed by Suzanne Agins
About The Play
In just three short years, Buddy set the music world on fire and forever changed the face and sound of rock ‘n’ roll. Charting the true story of Buddy Holly’s meteoric rise in popularity from the moment in 1957 when “That’ll Be the Day” hit the airwaves until his tragic death less than two years later, this rocking musical features several of the decade's greatest hits, including “Peggy Sue,” “Everyday,” Ritchie Valens’ “La Bamba,” The Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace”, “Oh Boy,” and many more.
This production was unapologetically loud, in your face, but also celebratory, fun, and intimate when it needed to be. With roaring rock music combined with traditional musical theatre elements, this production was a carefully curated mix. We embraced the rock and roll factor and did not shy away from being a loud without becoming too overbearing on the audience. We got around this by placing our guitar amplifiers backstage isolated from the rest of the theatre with lots of dense fabric to reduce reflections and scenic structures built to really isolate the sound. We then miked the amplifiers for reinforcement out in the theatre, and onstage for the actor's to hear themselves. The double bass was wireless with a DPA 4099 on the bridge and the pack hidden in the bottom portion of the bass. The drums were all individually miked with a modern concert feel, but were done so with an umbilical cable made up of power, and an ethernet line that connected to a stage box on the platform. The drums were also hidden behind a drum shield that was implanted into the scenic design of the show to help keep stage volume low as we could. There was a separate band hidden in the pit below the stage serving as a backup in case the main cast got sick and an understudy needed to go on, but they also provided supplementary instrumentation such as reeds and additional percussion.
The wireless for the show consisted of 16 RF channels for just the actors, 5 channels of QLab, 4 channels of drums from the stage, a wireless double bass, two electric guitars (miked, but the actor's also had wireless units to avoid cables), and several cardioid vocal mics to get them above the loud music as traditional lavs would not be able to get vocally above this style of music. The backup band was sub mixed on a separate console and then outputted into the main console as groups as well. This was a complicated and busy production for the sound department but we pulled through.
This production was unapologetically loud, in your face, but also celebratory, fun, and intimate when it needed to be. With roaring rock music combined with traditional musical theatre elements, this production was a carefully curated mix. We embraced the rock and roll factor and did not shy away from being a loud without becoming too overbearing on the audience. We got around this by placing our guitar amplifiers backstage isolated from the rest of the theatre with lots of dense fabric to reduce reflections and scenic structures built to really isolate the sound. We then miked the amplifiers for reinforcement out in the theatre, and onstage for the actor's to hear themselves. The double bass was wireless with a DPA 4099 on the bridge and the pack hidden in the bottom portion of the bass. The drums were all individually miked with a modern concert feel, but were done so with an umbilical cable made up of power, and an ethernet line that connected to a stage box on the platform. The drums were also hidden behind a drum shield that was implanted into the scenic design of the show to help keep stage volume low as we could. There was a separate band hidden in the pit below the stage serving as a backup in case the main cast got sick and an understudy needed to go on, but they also provided supplementary instrumentation such as reeds and additional percussion.
The wireless for the show consisted of 16 RF channels for just the actors, 5 channels of QLab, 4 channels of drums from the stage, a wireless double bass, two electric guitars (miked, but the actor's also had wireless units to avoid cables), and several cardioid vocal mics to get them above the loud music as traditional lavs would not be able to get vocally above this style of music. The backup band was sub mixed on a separate console and then outputted into the main console as groups as well. This was a complicated and busy production for the sound department but we pulled through.
Audio clips of the live mix are not included due to Actor's Equity restrictions, and live recordings do not accurately represent the theatre space. Please check with producing organizations if interested in quality of the mix, which I proudly stand behind.