Kid Simple – original theatrical sound design

KID SIMPLE: a radio play in the flesh

By Jordan Harrison
Directed by Krista D’Agostino

October 30th – November 14th at The Factory Theatre
791 Tremont St., Boston

Synopsis from Holland Productions: “Moll, a girl who invents things, wins the science fair with a machine for hearing sounds that can’t be heard. But when a shape-shifting Mercenary steals the invention (and her heart), she must embark on a quest to save noise as we know it. In a quirky fable of innocence and experience Moll crosses chasms and rafts rivers into a world where sound is always more than what meets the ear.”

Kid Simple was a very sound-heavy show.   The production required the creation of several sound collages, which represented the things that Moll’s incredible machine could “hear.”  The machine, when pointed at an object, heard everything that object had ever “heard.”  Sound was a huge part of the show – Joye Thaller, a talented local Foley artist, provided live sound, and I provided digital sound.  Together, we were responsible for over 200 sound effects.

I recorded the actors saying the various lines in rehearsal, and then spliced them together with ambient and background noise.  The first collage is what we hear when Moll points her machine at a school blackboard.

KID SIMPLE “Chorus of Teachers” by TheAndyHicks

This next collage was heard later in the show, as the machine begins to break down.

KID SIMPLE – “Babble 3″ by TheAndyHicks

The collages were recorded and edited with Cakewalk’s Sonar software, with some sound effects courtesy of the good people at Freesound.org.

Andy Hicks – headshot gallery

EXPLAIN YOURSELF

I’m also an actor/director.  Mostly stage, though I’ve done some film work.  These are here in case anyone wants to see them.

headshots by Bruce DiLoreto

Tomes of Terror III: The Tell-Tale Heart (2008) – original soundtrack

The Post-Meridian Radio Players is a Somerville, MA based troupe that performs live radio drama.   Every year, at Halloween, they perform a show called Tomes Of Terror, which is… well, it’s exactly what it sounds like.  Three Halloween themed radio shows, each creepier than the last.  It’s a lot of work, and it’s a lot of fun.

My friend Neil Marsh, the founder and director of the group, commissioned me to compose a soundtrack for one of last year’s pieces, an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. The performance honored the passing of its author, Len Peterson, the producer of the Canadian radio series Nightfall.  Mr. Peterson would frequently use slightly anachronistic music in his plays, so Neil wanted something that was at once creepy, catchy, modern, and old-sounding.

This is what I came up with:  it’s called “Blue Eye”, and there are two versions.

Version One (as heard during the performance) is an instrumental piece – it’s atmospheric, and full of Irish drums (gotta get that heartbeat/”watch wrapped in cotton” effect).  You can hear it here.

Blue Eye (Post-Meridian Mix) 1.mp3

Version Two is the “rock” mix – it has lyrics, and it’s more of a standard modern-rock song (think Nine Inch Nails meets Foo Fighters).   You can hear that one here.

Blue Eye (rock mix).mp3

Patriot Or Tory? (2009), Commonwealth Museum

Chedd-Angier-Lewis, a great group of multimedia artists based in Watertown, MA, cast me as Revolutionary War era shoemaker George Hewes in an interactive film entitled Patriot Or Tory, which will be part of the Commonwealth Museum’s new exhibit (opening later in 2009).

Andy Hicks: theatrical resume