Sequence
by Arun Lakra
Directed by Marshall Pailet


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Adirondack Theatre Festival
The Charles R. Wood Theater
July 23rd, 2019 - July 27th, 2019
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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

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? 

The Sound Design

Building Blocks

The 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.


​​Lecture

In the opening the play we have one member of each pair presenting a lecture establishing the themes and contents of the script. Is luck real or is everything in life a pre-established order we can't escape? Both having a "better-than-you" attitude, the director and I thought it would be funny to underscore the opening of their lectures with Sprach, which after easing the audience in, was immediately halted with a mirror shattering on stage defying expectation. As their lectures begin, they are underscored with an upbeat, driving passage I composed with an Array Mbira giving a scientific and intelligent sort of feel to their lecture. Immediately we establish the theme of challenging the audience's pre-conceived thoughts of the show.


​​Brain Blast

An example of how the loops made by the actors were used to establish tension and motivation. Pair 2 argues that their is a predetermined order to luck thanks to math and science (an argument made earlier in the play by the teacher in pair 1). We have the water dripping from pair 1 to establish tension, while a driving beat made from the slamming of a book keeps the rhythm for the actor. Sand blocks were used whenever our pairs discussed God. A woodblock was used to help connect the audience with how quick her brain was moving in this moments of explanation.

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​Tensions Rise

By the end of the play, our two pairs have almost seemingly blended together. Tension is at an all time high as several big revelations are made in how each character is connected with one another. Who will decide their fates God, Luck, or Science? All pending on one phone call. The thumping beat previously made with the book slam is replaced with a literal heartbeat, to really build tension. As we spiral into revelation after revelation, each of the loops are layered with their rhythms combining to create a sort of cacophony of music to match the cacophony that is happening on onstage. The pending phone call is heard as coins are tossed into the air. Who is right? Who is wrong?

​Sonic Boom

The 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.