'Tempest' Noises, Brattle Hall Design Try HTW Technician

"It's a hell of a job. The music has to sound as if it were being played by a live orchestra and at the same time it has to sound as if it were coming from the air."

This was John Safer 3L speaking and he was referring to his job as sound technician for the Harvard Theatre Workshop's production of "The Tempest."

Lukas Foss composed a musical score especially for the play but it has created several problems, acoustic and otherwise for Safer. Old Brattle Hall was built in 1890 before the days of the loud speaker. When Safer agreed to set up the loud speaker system for the HTW he had to calculate first where the sound ought to come from and then figure how to get the loud speakers there.

He solved this by hanging one loud speaker on a lighting boom directly over the stage and aiming it out toward the audience. He placed another backstage it is the latter speaker which gives the effect of the music coming from the air of an enchanted laic.

After the HTW had had the music commissioned for this show and had gathered a special orchestra under Tom Phillips to conduct it, Safer was really worried about how his system would carry it out to the audience. One critic had commented adversely on the sound system for "Troilus and Cresida," the Workshop's last play. But the morning that the reviews came out for "The Tempest," Safer was beaming. Nobody mentioned the sound system.

He was a success.