"NEWSIES STOP THE WORLD" for my second design with Moorhead High School Theatre. Newsies follows the story of the Newsboys Strike in turn of the century New York City, exploring themes including child labor exploitation, standing up to oppression, and even young love; along with a driving soundtrack, it's safe to say our cast of high schoolers were eager to dive into the script and put their spin on the recently-released-for-production hit musical!

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Newsies continues the work I did with the company during 2017's production of Aida. Namely, the double-hung L/C/R speaker system was back with bigger subs, more mics, and a double-level pit! This year, JBL SRX728s subwoofers were added to the mix to help deliver the incredible energy this cast projected into the 950+ seat auditorium.

 

The quintessential Newsboy caps and sheer volume of this show meant most of our actors were using Sennheiser MKE2 GOLD elements built into ear-rigs, with Jack and Katherine running redundant back-up systems (controlled using the same A/B Switch built for Aida.) To help allow the onstage actors focus on dancing, backstage choruses were used to reinforce the vocals during more intense numbers (such as Carrying the Banner, and Seize the Day.) These choruses were picked up using hanging Shure MX202B/C mics in each wing.

 

The script for this show was fully digital, running in Keynote on a dedicated Mac Mini controlled via MIDI soft keys from the main Behringer X32 Compact console's custom keys.