Once On This Island
Book and Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, Music by Stephen Flaherty
Directed & Choreographed by Breon Arzell
Cape Fear Regional Theatre
Owen Drive
May 15th - June 1st, 2025
Production Team:
Music Director: Christie Chiles Twilie
Scenic Design: Riw Rakkulchon
Costume Design: MFon-Abasi Obong
Hair & Makeup Design: Kiara Kirkland
Lighting Design: Erica Lauren Maholmes
Sound Design: Brandon Reed
About The Play
An island of storytellers come together to tell a story of love, bravery, and strength...the story of the peasant girl, Ti Moune. An orphan, chosen by the Gods, is taken into a simple and loving family, Though content, she feels like she was destined for something more. After a terrible accident caused by a wicked storm, Ti Moune falls for a handsome, ailing, stranger whom she tries desperately to nurse back to health. She bargains with the Gods for his life, but to do so she must make the ultimate sacrifice. This sets our young peasant girl on the ultimate quest to answer the age old question, can love conquer death?
Audio clips of the live mix are not included due to actor’s equity restrictions as well as recordings not accurately representing the theatre space.
Please check with the producing organization if interested in quality of the mix, which I proudly stand behind.
Photos taken courtesy of Rubiera Studios
I’m normally blessed when I work at CFRT to be able to work with a live band. However, this production was during a time when they were getting their theatre renovated. Therefore this production happened at a location off sight, so instead of live music, we had the entire show done to tracks. All of the music was triggered via our Assistant Music Director, James Allen Clark Jr offstage via a QLab computer separate from our sound computer.
The cast size was sixteen actors each with their own body mic. They were all mic’ed using Pointsource CO-8WL lavs with the in-house Shure ULXD transmitters and receivers. To help fill out the vocals we had an offstage AKG P420 for some offstage singing. We also felt that the tracks were lacking some percussion so we hired an additional percussionist. This person had a lav attached to their strap with a Countryman B3 the same color as their strap to blend in. This allowed me to amplify a bit more percussion on top of the tracks.
The system design was pretty straight forward. The audience was set up to be almost like an oval (not quite a thrust) around the stage. Therefore I used the in-house speakers of L’Acoustics and Turbosound to form a ring around the audience. The subs were older Mackie HD1501s that were under the audience risers both house left and right. For the cast foldbacks we had smaller JBL Control 28s in the air, given that the ceiling was low I hung them almost straight down, but at a slight tilt aimed upstage (for the downstage ones). We also hung them stage left and right aimed towards the center of the stage as well. We also had two Meyer speakers upstage for offstage monitoring and for sourcing sound effects.
The production also had a handful of sound effects to help make the world feel more inhabited. We added an entire storm sequence before the first song, as if a hurricane just devastated the island. This allowed the audience to connect more to the Gods in the show to allow for them to have a more grand and all powerful feeling and perhaps they aren’t always great. To the left are a few of my favorite cues from the show.
The production turned out great, since I got to mainly focus on vocal delivery and sound effects, given that the music was all tracks. However, I felt that mix was still great and it was exciting to work with tracks for the first time.
The Sound Design
