Between 1994 and 2000 I immersed myself in the Dallas & Ft. Worth theatre scenes. I would finally come up for air after 6 years and close to 100 theatrical productions. And 2 Dallas Theatre League Leon Rabin Awards for Outstanding Sound Design.

In 1998 I was asked to do my first Shakespeare production. It was The Tempest with Plano Repertory Theatre. Not your ordinary production set in the middle ages. This production would be set in the Orient.....

Imagine if you will...the stage turned into a Japanese rock garden courtyard with rice paper walls. Ariel the Kabuki fairy comes out perches on a sitting rock,  places a ship in the courtyard raked to look like water waves, and conjures up the storm. The pre-recorded dialogue in the opening was then pantomimed while backlit behind the rice paper walls and when the gong hits, the lights change, the rice paper doors open and Prospero enters.







Imagine if you will... Ariel delivering his famous monologue, not as a fairy, but as a 10 foot Chinese Dragon terrorizing the shipwrecked travelers.







Imagine if you will... Geishas as the voices of Ceres, Juno, and Iris singing to the newly wedded Ferdinand and Miranda.







That was the first of 2 sound designs I would do with composer Ron Murvihill. We would team up again the next year in Plano for “Journey’s End” which would be completed early in 1999 before we found out that The Tempest had been nominated and eventually win in November 1999.

About that time I’d been doing a lot of the standard plays with ordinary sound designs, a doorbell, a dog barking, a car pulling up, a phone ringing & scene change music. When the director would allow and the play called for it, I started experimenting with placing sound & speakers different places and routing specific cues to them. Transitioning the scene change music from the main theatre speakers to a radio or phonograph onstage that an actor is listening to as the lights come up, cars pulling up stage left or right of the set instead of the main theatre speakers, german storm troopers breaking down doors, shouting and climbing stairs underneath the stage in The Diary of Anne Frank, a piano being played onstage that becomes a sound cue in the main speakers. People in Plano really freaked out when they were in the midst of a production of Dracula and all of the sudden wolves are howling behind them instead of the main theatre speakers. It really drew the audience into the production.

I vividly remember thinking about it would be cool to to a big bombs and guns type production one day. Little did i know that my fantasy would get brought to life in a major way. For Journey’s End we had music that played in the main speakers from one sound source and speakers back stage that played the bombs and guns from a second source. The closer the war gets, the louder the bombs and guns are. At the end of the play a bomb hits the fox hole bunker “that you are in” and the set collapses. We actually had people scream it scared them so bad.







In 1999 I only did 2 theatrical sound designs in Dallas as I was working for Casa Manana Theatre in Fort Worth. One play for Plano Repertory Theatre, Journey’s End, and one musical for Our Endeavors Theatre Company, Gorey Stories, were all I could handle outside of Casa’s production schedule. They would go on to be the 2 best shows at the 2000 Dallas Theatre League Leon Rabin Awards taking 9 categories between the 2. There I was working in a Ft. Worth theatre, going over to Dallas in my off time winning their theatre awards.... It was a magical time for me.

* Production of a Musical: Gorey Stories, Our Endeavors Theatre Company
* Production of a Play: Journey's End, Plano Repertory Theatre
* Director (musical): Scott Osborne, Gorey Stories
* Director (play): Terry Martin, Journey's End
* Supporting actor (play): Brian Gonzales, Journey's End
* Sound design: Jay S. Jones, Journey's End
* Costume design: Valerie Liberta, Journey's End
* Set design: Bryan Wofford, Journey's End
* Lighting design: Jeff Stover, Journey's End

The Tempest - 
Q1 Opening MontageTHEATREAUDIO_files/TempestOpening.mp3
The Tempest - 
Ariel’s Speech...As a dragonTHEATREAUDIO_files/TempestArielDragon.mp3
The Tempest -
Honor, Riches, Marriage BlessingsTHEATREAUDIO_files/Tempest%20Honor%20Riches.mp3
Journey’s End -
Q1 Opening MontageTHEATREAUDIO_files/JEOpening.mp3

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Award Winning Sound Designs