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Masque Sound equips new Broadway production of “A Christmas Carol”

“A Christmas Carol” recently arrived at Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre, and Sound Designer Joshua D. Reid called upon theatrical sound reinforcement, installation and design company Masque Sound to provide a custom audio equipment package for the holiday classic. In this production of “A Christmas Carol”, actor Jefferson Mays plays over fifty roles, directed by Michael Arden.

Masque Sound provided a custom audio set up for the film version of the play back in 2020, so for Reid it was just natural to bring Masque along to Broadway. Transitioning from film to the Broadway stage meant the addition of a full PA system. “For the filming, we did not really have any loudspeakers on the stage or in the house as we were mixing down the audio for film recording so it could be dissected and put it together in the studio”, says Reid. “When we moved to the live stage version of the show, we had to add in all the loudspeakers.”

The PA system, provided by Masque Sound, is composed of speakers from Meyer Sound. According to Reid, “We flew a Meyer M’elodie line array system with 700-HP subwoofers for our center array along with the Ultra-X40 for our left and right mains. We also utilized Meyer Sound’s 600-HP delay subwoofers for the balcony, with additional MM10 subwoofers for the rear orchestra.”

One of the interesting components of the audio package is the use of microphones. “Jefferson wears four wireless microphones all around his head during the production”, says Reid. “That is a lot of microphones for one person, but he is out there for ninety minutes straight and doesn’t have a chance to change mics. We use Sennheiser MKE1 lavaliers along with Shure ADX1M transmitters with Axient Digital series receivers, all provided by Masque.”

The show also relies heavily on QLab playback. “Our system primarily consists of QLab for audio playback and Ableton for vocal processing”, says Reid. “There are about 335 operator cues over the course of ninety minutes and some of those are soundscapes, music, and a lot of those are different vocal inflections so the reverb processing and vocal inflection processing is done through Ableton. We take all the live mics that Jefferson is using to not only reinforce him on the stage, but we use that to put him in different environments and to change the tonality of his voice over the course of the show.”

For the production, Mix Engineers Maxine Gutierrez and Ian Carr operate the show and control the vocal levels from a Yamaha CL5 digital audio mixing console, also provided by Masque Sound. The system is networked over Dante. “In addition to Maxine and Ian who do an incredible job, I also want to acknowledge the incredible work of Production Engineer Dillon Cody as well as my Assistant Sound Designers Megan Culley and Sam Kusnetz”, adds Reid.

(Photos: A Christmas Carol Live/Masque Sound)

www.masquesound.com

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