Manhunt: Mystery In A Box
by Hank Greene & Chad Rabinovitz
Directed by Chad Rabinovitz
by Hank Greene & Chad Rabinovitz
Directed by Chad Rabinovitz
In The Box Entertainment Performed entirely on Zoom January 12th - January 23rd, 2021 Puzzle Design: Chad Rabinovitz Video Design: Brian Nappi Scenic Design: David Wade Lighting Design & Production Management: Erika Johnson Sound Design: Brandon Reed Cast: The Detective: Marcus Kearns C.H.A.R.L.I.E. / Murderer: Marcus Kearns Newscaster: Rachel Dilliplane |
In the fall of 2020 as many theaters are attempting to figure out how to move their seasons online, a collaborator and director I've worked with in the past, reached out to me about a new adventure he was embarking on. Rather than performing the typical play readings on Zoom that most people were doing, he decided to dive headfirst into creating a new form of online performance. Combining Zoom with interactive technology, Chad transformed his home theatre Bloomington Playwrights Project into a multi-media studio by the name of In The Box Entertainment completely decked out with green screens, video cameras, and sound equipment. Anyone who purchased tickets would be mailed a physical box that contained props to allow them to interact with the show as it happened on Zoom. The show would also be sold to other theatre companies to present as part of their season as well. The production would be performed live every night.
Bringing me on as the sound designer, I worked with Chad and the rest of the production team to create this new interactive performance involving a blend of live acting, recorded video, and called cues. Ranging from reinforcement for our sole actor into the Zoom feed, creating soundscapes, underscoring, adding sound to video, and providing mixing and audio restoration for guest performances in between scenes. Playback was vastly different from just the typical QLab setup. It involved a mixture of QLab, Wirecast, blending cues in both programs separately, and sometimes together. This blend into both programs was dependent on the complexity and need to allow the entire production to be run by a single operator and stage manager.
You buy a ticket. You’re delivered a box. Inside the box, you find a variety of objects, along with an invitation… beckoning you to solve a mysterious puzzle. You accept the invitation, and are connected online to a detective who needs the clues in your box to start connecting the pieces… but… the pieces to what? As the plot unfolds into a night of twists and turns – along with virtual live performances that plunge you deeper into a world of noir and intrigue – you realize this is about much more than random items in a box. You begin to wonder: in this virtual game of cat and mouse… who’s chasing who? And why is one of your objects a clock that’s slowly counting down? And… perhaps most importantly of all… what happens when it hits zero?
Bringing me on as the sound designer, I worked with Chad and the rest of the production team to create this new interactive performance involving a blend of live acting, recorded video, and called cues. Ranging from reinforcement for our sole actor into the Zoom feed, creating soundscapes, underscoring, adding sound to video, and providing mixing and audio restoration for guest performances in between scenes. Playback was vastly different from just the typical QLab setup. It involved a mixture of QLab, Wirecast, blending cues in both programs separately, and sometimes together. This blend into both programs was dependent on the complexity and need to allow the entire production to be run by a single operator and stage manager.
You buy a ticket. You’re delivered a box. Inside the box, you find a variety of objects, along with an invitation… beckoning you to solve a mysterious puzzle. You accept the invitation, and are connected online to a detective who needs the clues in your box to start connecting the pieces… but… the pieces to what? As the plot unfolds into a night of twists and turns – along with virtual live performances that plunge you deeper into a world of noir and intrigue – you realize this is about much more than random items in a box. You begin to wonder: in this virtual game of cat and mouse… who’s chasing who? And why is one of your objects a clock that’s slowly counting down? And… perhaps most importantly of all… what happens when it hits zero?
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