{"id":4316,"date":"2014-06-06T00:21:18","date_gmt":"2014-06-06T07:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=4316"},"modified":"2014-08-27T20:19:35","modified_gmt":"2014-08-28T03:19:35","slug":"mishelle-cuttlers-music-and-sounds-infuse-concessions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2014\/06\/06\/mishelle-cuttlers-music-and-sounds-infuse-concessions\/","title":{"rendered":"Mishelle Cuttler\u2019s music and sounds infuse Concessions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jillian Fargey, back, and Emma Slipp in The Concessions<\/em>. (photo by Emily Cooper)<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sitting outside an East Vancouver rehearsal hall in the bright sunshine of an early spring day, Mishelle Cuttler is philosophical about going unnoticed. The 26-year-old sound designer and music composer, currently working on the play The Concessions<\/em> for Touchstone Theatre, mused of her field, \u201cI think it is a discipline that is often unnoticed. It\u2019s kind of like lighting in the way that if you don\u2019t notice it, it probably means that it\u2019s done well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuttler\u2019s sound design and music may not draw attention to themselves, she said, but they can have a profound effect on an audience. \u201cMusic,\u201d she pointed out, \u201ckind of bypasses your brain and goes straight to your emotional centre. Sound in general does that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the work that will go unnoticed in The Concessions<\/em>, then, includes complex sound effects and an original musical score. She will provide the production with digital recordings of animal sounds and rainstorms. She will compose and orchestrate music for scene changes and to underscore some of the action.<\/p>\n

The Concessions<\/em>, by Briana Brown, is the story of a shocking murder in a small Ontario town. Fear pervades the community, as the killer remains at large. Suspects are everywhere, safety nowhere, and the supernatural makes an appearance. The production is part of Touchstone Theatre\u2019s Flying Start program that showcases work by new playwrights. It runs from June 6 to 14 at the Firehall Arts Centre.<\/p>\n

The first time she reads any play, said Cuttler, \u201cI keep my eye out for anything audible.\u201d To her, The Concessions<\/em> has a lot of noise in it, much of it coming from the outdoors. \u201cThis play is really about its environment. It\u2019s about this town and there\u2019s a lot of reference to the weather and these storms that are happening,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s the lake and then there\u2019s this forest where this tragedy happens. I think the fact that this place is rural and in nature is very important to the script.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said her \u201cnumber one\u201d task is to create the weather. \u201cIt comes up all the time,\u201d she said. \u201cRaining and thunder and wind, there are also some animals referenced in the script that might come out. There\u2019s water … and there\u2019s a lot of silence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knowing when to be quiet is also part of her job. \u201cAs a sound designer, I have to be constantly reminding myself that silence can be very important, and sometimes it\u2019s better,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Touchstone artistic director Katrina Dunn, the director of The Concessions<\/em>, said one of Cuttler\u2019s greatest challenges is to create the important radio broadcasts that occur throughout the play. Speaking by phone, Dunn said the play has a \u201cwhole through-line\u201d that involves the radio. \u201cThe local radio station is the conduit through which we feel the larger city,\u201d she said. The play contains an element of magic and, during one five-minute radio broadcast, \u201cthe radio goes crazy and goes into another realm. That\u2019s an interesting thing for a sound designer to get to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always found composing comes much easier to me when it\u2019s for a purpose, when I\u2019m trying to do something to further a story.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Cuttler is also writing and orchestrating the play\u2019s original musical score. \u201cIn this show, it seems like there will be some pretty complex and interesting scene changes, which is always the most important moment for me,\u201d said Cuttler, whose music will cover the scene changes and underscore some of the action. On a show like this, she has only weeks to compose and, during rehearsal, it\u2019s a matter of days. \u201cI\u2019ve always found composing comes much easier to me when it\u2019s for a purpose, when I\u2019m trying to do something to further a story,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Cuttler\u2019s work continued through the rehearsal period. As The Concessions<\/em> took shape, the music and sound design changed. \u201cThe music is the stuff that takes the most massaging and figuring out because it\u2019s really tailored to the script specifically,\u201d she explained. That meant composing on the fly, which, she said, is just part of working on a new play. The script \u201ccan be very fluid up until the last minute.\u201d<\/p>\n

The busy designer, actor and musician will spend the summer playing accordion for Caravan Theatre in the Okanagan. She has a sound design job lined up for next season, and her original musical, Stationary<\/em>, will be produced at the Cultch in April 2015. \u201cI think that I always dreamed of a life where I was doing lots of different things and I\u2019m fortunate that I\u2019ve sort of achieved that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Cuttler was recently nominated for a Jessie Richardson Theatre Award for her sound design on Itsazoo\u2019s April production of Killer Joe<\/em>. Winners will be announced at the June 23 ceremony.<\/p>\n

Tickets to The Concessions<\/em> can be found at firehallartscentre.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Michael Groberman<\/strong> is a Vancouver freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jillian Fargey, back, and Emma Slipp in The Concessions. (photo by Emily Cooper) Sitting outside an East Vancouver rehearsal hall in the bright sunshine of an early spring day, Mishelle Cuttler is philosophical about going unnoticed. The 26-year-old sound designer and music composer, currently working on the play The Concessions for Touchstone Theatre, mused of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[1203,1266,1265,1267,1268],"class_list":["post-4316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-firehall-arts-centre","tag-katrina-dunn","tag-mishelle-cuttler","tag-the-concessions","tag-touchstone-theatre"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}