The 2024 Tony Awards will be revealed on Sunday, June 16, and one of the esteemed nominees is sound designer Bray Poor, who is nominated with Will Pickens for “Best Sound Design of a Play” for their outstanding work in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Appropriate, starring Sarah Paulson. Poor is also a voiceover artist for Great Performances.
In the following interview, Poor speaks about the elements that comprise a sound designer’s job, his voiceover work for Great Performances, and shares the lowdown on those incessantly singing cicadas in Appropriate.
1) What is a theatrical sound designer’s job and what role does sound design in a play or musical encompass?
A sound designer is part of a design team responsible for telling a unified version of a particular story in a production. In the same way a set designer talks about entrances and exits, and how a set functions to tell a story or create a vibe or create flow — which transitions are fast and which are long and detailed – a sound designer is responsible for any sonic element in a production. All of these dramaturgical decisions happen by speaking with the director and collaborating with the other designers. If we look at the design team as a kind of presidential team, the sound designer is one of the cabinet members attempting to create a story and an experience that swims in the same river the director is carving.
2) Can you share some examples of sonic elements in a play?
A sonic element can be super practical, from the smallest thing like a particular bird, a doorbell, or the sound of blender in a kitchen to something much more abstract and “soundscapey.” Depending on the nature of the play, there can be ambiences that create a kind of “super score” or feeling, which help to tell a story that rises and falls with the dramatic action. There can also be original music composed specifically for a production. In that case, the sound designer is responsible for excecuting how that music is heard and perceived in the audience – determining what the speakers are, where they’re placed, and where they hang — to make sure the audience receives a unifying experience across the entire house, whether you’re sitting in the sixth row of the orchestra in the center or the back row of the mezzanine on the side.
3) Sound design is integral to the storytelling in Appropriate in a very explicit way. The cicadas become more pervasive and menacing as the play progresses in a way that is almost Hitchcockian.
Yes, the cicadas are almost a character in Appropriate, just as the house is a character in the play. What’s cool and unique about Appropriate is that the sound of the cicadas is written in the actual script. Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins spends two pages before a person even speaks a word of dialogue describing the cicadas and what they sound like. It’s very realistic and accurately described, but it’s also highly poetic and beautiful in terms of the way this “insect song” – that’s how he describes it – envelopes the audience in a sonic void, an intense saturation of sound. He even writes that before the play starts, the lights go out and we’re sitting in this noise, in this sound, for what feels like too long for a play. He says the audience should be thinking: what is happening and why is this going on for so long? You read that as a sound designer and know it’s a real challenge. Branden is being very clear and specific, and it’s up to you to try to get as close as you can to what he’s describing. It’s also a thrill and a sound designer’s dream.
4) What do you listen for when you go see a play or musical? What do you hear that a lay person wouldn’t?
Today in modern playmaking, certainly in larger houses, mosts casts in shows are miked, as actors need to be able to act in a way that is intimate and small. This isn’t something you’d expect to hear about stage acting, but audience expectations have changed over the past 10 years due to television, where the acting is very small and concentrated for the camera. So when I’m listening to a play, my ears tend to pick up whether or not the actors are miked and if the miking is done in a way that’s good and transparent and doesn’t take me out of the play. We have a funny joke in sound design: we say if nobody knows the actors are miked, we’ve done our job.
5) You were an actor before you became a sound designer. Does your background as an actor inform your approach to sound design?
I definitely feel like my time as an actor informs my approach to sound design. It’s the fingerprint of my sound design. There are other sound designers who are technical in ways that I’m not, but my strength is having in my body what it feels like to be an actor on a stage or in a movie and knowing what it feels like to have sound design underneath me and beside me. I’m always thinking about the actors when I’m designing a play. I go to rehearsals a lot because I like to design alongside the actors as they’re developing their arcs, and it allows the director to start integrating sound into the production. This especially helps directors who aren’t super facile with sound understand how sound is going to work in their play, rather than starting from zero during tech at the end of the rehearsal period.
5) In addition to being a sound designer, you’re a voiceover artist for Great Performances. How do you prepare for voiceover recording sessions?
Yes, that’s my voice you hear in the intros and funder credits for Great Performances programs. I prepare by reading the script multiple times, doing singing warm-ups just like any vocal performer, and watching the video to get a sense of what the producer is asking of me. I’m always super interested in the music choices for the spots because they tend to dictate a lot, and there’s quite a bit of variety in the spots. They can be celebratory, they can be somber, they can be informational, they can be very fast and you have 24 seconds to say all the words. When I get into the recording booth with the producer and audio engineer, I’ll ask questions like, “Do we want a smile in here?” And I’m directed like an actor. The team might say, “Too peppy,” or “You don’t have to sell me so hard,” or “I want more smile in your voice.”
6) Do you have any favorite Great Performances episodes?
The Hollow Crown series, thrilling filmed versions of Shakespeare’s history plays starring Ben Whishaw and other amazing British actors, is one of my all-time favorites. I have all the DVDs. And I love doing promos for the Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concerts. They always make me want to take a summer trip to Vienna to listen to music outdoors at the Schönbrunn Palace – and because they were some of the first jobs I did for Great Performances, they remind me of when I started working with the series over a decade ago.
Love Broadway and all things theater? Check out Broadway and Beyond, a special collection of theater and arts programming from The WNET Group you can enjoy online at thirteen.org/broadway.
