Misery
Adapted by William Goldman, based on the novel by Stephen King
Directed by Chad Rabinovitz
Constellation Stage & Screen
Waldron Auditorium
January 30th - February 16th, 2025
Production Team:
Scenic Design: Seth Howard
Costume Design: Kate Mott
Lighting Design: Jennifer Fok
Sound Design & Original Music: Brandon Reed
Props/Special FX Design: Mitchell Ward
About The Play
We follow a successful romance novelist Paul Sheldon, who is rescued from a car crash and wakes up captive in a secluded home owned by his self-identified “number one fan,” Annie Wilkes. While Paul is convalescing, Annie reads the manuscript of his latest book and becomes enraged when she discovers the author has killed off her favorite character, Misery Chastain. Annie forces Paul to write a new Misery novel and he quickly realizes Annie has no intention of letting him go. The irate Annie has Paul writing as if his life depends on it – and it does.
Later in the play, Paul has made progress on the new Misery novel and Annie has grown to love it. However, she realizes that means that her hero may leave soon. She decides that he can never leave and decides to break his legs to keep him in her home.
We recreate the scene from the movie using Moonlight Sonata to get us into it, but once we are in the scene proper the ambience from outside fades in. Faint moaning freezing wind. Then Annie enters in a daze convinced of what she must do accompanied by the pulse rhythm by the bass. Tensions rise until she finally slams the hammer down on his feet accompanied by a sharp stinger sound, which also fades in strings playing various atonal parts to really up the intensity. One more sharp sound as she goes for a second shot to really make sure they are broken. After the deed is done, we have the Moonlight Sonata taking us out of the scene.
Photos taken courtesy of Seth Howard and Zach Rosing
While chatting with our director Chad, the first thing he said to me was that the sound design should be influenced by the film, but not be a direct carbon copy. Therefore I spent a great deal of time listening to the original film. I loved the sparse instrumentation, how simplistic, but effective it was. I decided that I wanted to do my own variation of that style. I decided that I wanted to use classical instruments such as the piano, violin, cello, bass, and etc, but stick to a simplistic and creepy atmosphere. Thankfully Chad also wanted to approach scoring this play as a horror film. Making use of lots of musical underscoring in internal scenes to really enhance the creepy and horrific things that Annie does to Paul.
Outside of the music, I also wanted to really highlight that we are stuck in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. I accomplished this through using a soundscape of a rural mountain region. Combining different intensities of arctic wind and birds layered with the thunderstorm and a sparse lonely and creepy score I was really able to help the audience feel like they were isolated like Paul. The only person we can relay on is Annie. For better or for worse.
Top Of Show
Right away we wanted the audience to be creep-ed out and feel that something isn’t quite right about this situation. I start off with a musical transition that gives us a feeling of this being a darker production. As the music finishes we fade in faint chilling wind outside the window with very dim lighting. A gust of wind shines light on Paul stuck in bed before it dips back to darkness. Then a flash of lighting and thunder reveals Annie. Right away establishing a tonal difference between the two. After meeting Annie, we have a musical transition that takes us into the first scene, but just before it begins it isolates to just single piano notes as Annie stares creepily at Paul in bed. As it finishes the scene starts.
The Sound Design
Dirty Birdy
Paul gives the manuscript for his next Misery novel to Annie after all it’s the least he can do for the person saving his life. However, after she finishes, thing’s don’t go according to plan.
We have a soft creepy piano transitioning us into later in the evening during a thunderstorm. We hear the rain and distant thunder. It’s calm, but slightly creepy. Until finally one big thunder brings up Annie as she appears in the doorway furious and accompanied by a tremolo cello. Annie has a shift in direction accompanied by thunder as the music drops to a heart beat rhythm played by an upright bass. If he isn’t going to bring back her favorite actor, she’s going to burn the book. To calm her down, Paul agrees to change the story, as one climatic thunder takes out the music and we have a more calm Annie.
Sledgehammer
Paul’s Escape
Paul convinces Annie that he needs a particular type of paper in order to write. She leaves to go and get it, which gives Paul a chance to escape. What follows is a whole sequence of him breaking out of the room and exploring. To go with this I have a musical underscore that is tense and eerie, but also keeps the tempo up and the pacing moving. As the scenery changes there are cinematic whooshes to have sound motivate them. Paul discovers the phone doesn’t work but he finds a knife in the kitchen. After finding the knife, we hear Annie pull up in the car as the music shifts to short bursts of tremolo cello to really up the stakes. As he navigates his way back to his bed we have more scenery shifts. He gets back to his bed and hopefully Annie hasn’t noticed anything different.
The Climax
Finally in the climatic scene where Paul tries to kill Annie, we have a back and forth. It’s late at night, but as we see Annie approach Paul the music gets a bit sinister as atonal strings play. Annie threatens to burn the manuscript for his new series if he doesn’t commit to writing Misery full time. The music picks up a bit more in intensity as we bring in cello and bass playing tremolo parts. Before she can do it, Paul hits her on the head with his typewriter cutting out the music abruptly. Did he win? Low intense frequency drones come in as Annie gets back up. She attacks Paul as the music jump scares the audience. Paul lands a blown on Annie accompanied by a piano string being plucked to highlight him getting the upper hand. After a brief pause Annie coughs and moves as the music kicks back in. Finally, Paul strangles Annie as the strings are alive and full intensity. As her life fades so does the music. Silence.