Sequence
by Arun Lakra
Directed by Marshall Pailet
by Arun Lakra
Directed by Marshall Pailet
Adirondack Theatre Festival The Charles R. Wood Theater July 23rd, 2019 - July 27th, 2019 Scenic Design: Paul dePoo Costume Design: Jolene Richardson Lighting Design: Chelsie McPhilimy Sound Design & Original Music: Brandon Wayne Reed |
Photos taken courtesy of Jim McLaughlin Photography
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About The Play
Sequence is an edge-of-your-seat science thriller, where two stories intertwine like a fragment of DNA. In one thread, Time Magazine's Luckiest Man Alive has bet on the Super Bowl coin toss 19 years in a row. And won every time. Today, he is about to risk 880 million dollars on the 20th, until he fortuitously meets a young woman who claims to have figured out his mathematical secret. In our second thread, a blind professor has a late night mystery visitor by a student in a wheelchair, who, on his exam somehow got all their questions wrong, a 1 in 5 quintillion chance.
Stem cell research, God, miniskirts, Fibonacci numbers, and football all meld and interplay in an intellectual cocktail. Belief systems clash, ideas recombine, mutate and evolve, and order springs from chaos. And the question is asked...in our lives, in our universe, and even in our stories, does order matter?
Stem cell research, God, miniskirts, Fibonacci numbers, and football all meld and interplay in an intellectual cocktail. Belief systems clash, ideas recombine, mutate and evolve, and order springs from chaos. And the question is asked...in our lives, in our universe, and even in our stories, does order matter?
The Sound Design
Building BlocksThe play is full of moments where we see parallel thoughts, gestures, and references between the two pairs of actors. We wanted the audience to connect the dots. At the same time we wanted to underscore the ebb and flow of tension throughout the play. This served as the motivation for the sound design. Together the director and I mapped out the parallel spots in the staging. We recorded sounds the actors made interacting with the scenery and props (water drip from faucet, book tossed, a sand block, and a woodblock). When we saw moments from pair 1 referenced with pair 2, we played the sounds from pair 1 (and vice versa). As the scenes started to blend, so did the sounds. An additional benefit was that depending on how the cues were called the loops and sounds created unique underscoring every performance further tying to the "if life has a pre-established order" theme.
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Sonic BoomThe climax, guns raised at each other. One pair trying to prove God right, the other luck. One final bet is placed before the big moment. A slow build where the heartbeat that is underscoring the moment accelerates as the guns are revealed and are raised. As the actors begin to shout the loops are layered one by one further increasing tension. Finally all loops cease except for the heartbeat at an extreme rate. The pairs look at one another waiting the outcome as all layers play together several times raising in pitch and volume. Finally, just as we think they are about to pull the triggers, an extreme flash and bang is heard as we reverse back in time to the beginning of the story's lecture scene. Leaving the audience stunned. "What came first the chicken or the egg?" Mirror smashed. Blackout.
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