So I have a confession. Christmas music drives me crazy. Absolutely CRAZY.

This is pretty funny, since I like almost every genera of music out there from alternative to classical and country to ska. I don't even mind opera.

I blame this dislike on two things... first, the fact that my mother LOVES Christmas music, and would start listening to it around Halloween when I was a kid. One of the few times my dad and I laid down the law was when I was 7 or 8. We told her on no uncertain terms that she wasn't to put on any Bing Crosby or Mannheim Steamroller until the Friday after Thanksgiving. Grudgingly she agreed, but the result was she started playing her Christmas collection at 8 or so in the morning that Friday, and didn't stop the rotation till she went to bed. (It gave Black Friday a whole new connotation for me.)

Second, two of my first sound designs in undergrad were Christmas shows, and I had to start listening to Christmas music when the production process began - in late September. The first of these shows was two one acts - the stage version of Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory, and a new work, Holiday Memories (at least, I THINK that's what it was called.) This production required not only LOTS of music, but of multiple varieties... So I had to listen to buckets of music and find instrumental music appropriate for rural Alabama in the 1930's, and modern or popular music a family would hear in their car in Arizona in 1996 (give or take a year.)

At any rate... whatever the cause... There are two exceptions to this dislike... Frank Sinatra's Christmas Collection, and singing carols in my church choir. In fact... there are several carols that are some of my very favorite things to sing. It's ironic, but it's true...

So, as you may imagine, learning ASF was producing A Christmas Carol when our season was announced made me groan with the anticipation of having to listen to music for the show - as every Christmas title has a tendency to do.

The good news for me, was this particular adaptation of the Dickens classic by our Producing Artistic Director, Geoffrey Sherman, makes use of carols and carolers - namely cast members who sing the majority of the music of the show - creating what often feels like a choir. Even though I'm not singing, it's pretty ok... because all the pieces are ones I know and can sing.

This bit of relief goes a long way towards making this show pretty ok.

The other part that makes this show totally ok for me to design, is that whatever else it maybe, it's really a ghost story. Most of my effects - if you look at them out of context - sound nothing like Christmas, but a lot like Halloween - chains, ghosts, scrapes, thunder, howling wind, - plus lots of cues that show in almost any and every show - clocks and bells and street sounds. Thunder - maybe a sound design cliche - is one of my favorite effects, although chains is probably my least.

There have been some challenges - needing cues I don't have good sources/versions of - such as a tuning fiddle and recording the bulk of the carols as back-up or in-case transitions.

There are also the challenges and un-joys of microphones. Several members of my cast are in mic packs, not the carolers, in fact, but three of the four ghosts to add effects and reverb to their voices and support their "other-worldly-ness." (There are also mics on some young actors for audibility.) We're also using floor mics to support various scenes.

I come full circle with the show, as it's probably one of my absolute favorite stories - it has a little bit of everything on top of ghosts - charity, love, family, watching out for your fellow man, a watching the change of heart of - to quote Dickens - of "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner."

~R