Blazing An Audio Trail For the inventive Chicago duo of Pluess and Sussman, sound is much more than mere accompaniment. By Lucia Mauro Issue: March 2001 Steven Rishard, Matthew Fahey, Thomas Joseph Carroll and Hollis Resnik (from left to right) star in the Chicago-based Court Theatre’s production of Fair Ladies At A Game Of Poem Cards. Andre Pluess and Ben Sussman, resident artists at the Court Theatre, designed the sound. Andre Pluess and Ben Sussman regularly go out on aural scavenger hunts. Pluess might ask his collaborator to call him, then let the answering machine pick up so he can record the beep. To capture a kaleidoscope of natural sound fragments, they suspend microphones over congested intersections or near running water. They later shape these snippets into an evocative landscape for one of the myriad productions they work on. These Chicago-based composers and sound designers, who work more often as a team than separately, are changing the way local theaters approach sound. Forget standard reactive tactics, like the ubiquitous doorbell or gunshot. Pluess and Sussman create a sound palette that illuminates the mood and theme of a script. They often team up with progressive companies that take a multidisciplinary approach to theater. “We’re most successful when we try to integrate as many audible elements into the act of storytelling as possible,” says Pluess, “like music, ambient sound, voiceovers or live actor-generated sound.” Since demonstrating their inventive precision in productions for Roadworks, Lookingglass and About Face theaters in 1997, Pluess and Sussman have become synonymous with high-quality sound design. And they’re everywhere. One would think they spend their lives in eternal tech. Right now, they’re working on about six shows simultaneously and are booked into the fall. What sets their work apart in this somewhat elusive field that rarely gets the attention it deserves? Eric Rosen, co-artistic director of About Face Theatre, where the sound designers recently composed the soaring melodies for Whitman, a dramatic quilt of poems, attributes their success to an astute ability to translate theatrical language into music and sound. “Andre and Ben compose the emotional energy of a show,” comments Rosen. “They amplify a work without overpowering it. They know that really good sound design gets underneath and supports the play.” At the same time, the design partners have cultivated a measured but eclectic vocabulary. Rosen adds, “They’ve grown into a highly punctuated and percussive style. They’re very energetic, but there’s a restraint to their work that is artful.” Perhaps their broad backgrounds helped mold their all-encompassing ear for sound design. Pluess and Sussman met at the University of Chicago, while writing music for the student-run University Theatre. Since they both can play several musical instruments, they have composed pieces for theatrical genres ranging from Shakespeare to avant-garde performance art. Interestingly, neither pursued a music or technical major. Sussman, who majored in mathematics, graduated in 1994, a year ahead of Pluess, who holds a degree in European church history. This rather unconventional blend of musical, scientific and historic expertise proved an advantage as they found themselves in demand for devising the sonic backdrop for the University Theatre’s vast scope of shows. Curt Columbus, artistic director of University Theatre and an artistic associate at Steppenwolf Theatre, was so impressed with their work that he recommended them to some of the hottest off-Loop theaters. Currently serving as resident sound designers at Victory Gardens Theatre, Pluess and Sussman credit Columbus with guiding them to their current career. One project led to another as praise by local artists, satisfied with the duo’s flexibility and innovative ideas, spread like wildfire. “The key to being a successful sound designer,” says Pluess, “is strongly rooted in musical background. The demand has grown for defining music in a broader sense. It’s not just concordance and harmony. There’s a melodic, rhythmic texture to ambient sound.” For About Face, they have designed over ten productions. They are resident designers at Court Theatre, a professional classics company located on the University of Chicago campus, and ensemble members of the edgy Roadworks Productions. They have received four Joseph Jefferson Awards: two for original music, two for sound design. Current projects highlighting their unobtrusive and multidimensional talents include Closer at Steppenwolf, And Neither Have I Wings To Fly for Fox Theatricals, The Invention Of Love at Court Theatre, Spite For Spite at Writers’ Theatre, Blissfield at Victory Gardens, Experiment With An Air Pump at Northlight Theatre and Kafka’s Metamorphosis at Lookingglass. Sussman, who is also a software engineer, joins efficient technology with a lyrical compositional bent that harkens back to his classical and jazz piano studies. Pluess plays reeds, guitar and piano. Together, they gravitate toward a Euro-classical style informed by the Western choral tradition. Yet they are forever finding new ways of marrying classical structure with techno- or urban beat-driven rhythms. The designers describe their process. “First it’s about reading the play,” explains Pluess. “Then it’s about hearing the play. An automatic genesis of aural ideas sets in motion the instrumental vocabulary of the piece. It’s more of a gut connection of what we envision as a vocabulary of sounds.” Continues Sussman, who emits a calm, methodical air, “Sound becomes part of the image. Different theaters have different trademarks. Lookingglass always works in a heightened reality. Once we know what the role of sound is—narrative, supportive, transitional—then it’s a question of jumping in. We start recording and laying out tracks, followed by the tech process: the integration of pre-recorded elements into the show.” Each designer has a home studio. Their equipment of choice includes a Kurzweil digital piano; Mackie mixers; AKG and Shure microphones; an Alesis external effects generator; a PC version of the Pro-Audio 9 computer program; and MIDI disks for playbacks. Resources vary from theater to theater. Sometimes they have to install their own sound system. “Why are sound designers expected to do everything?” asks Sussman. “There’s this assumption that sound designers have to be engineers.” While they can perform engineering duties, Pluess and Sussman most enjoy crafting the rhythmic energy of a production. They are drawn to the multilayered visual symbolism of director Mary Zimmerman, a Goodman Theatre artistic associate who is active in Lookingglass Theatre. In her version of Ovid’s Metamorphoses for Lookingglass (not to be confused with the later production of Kafka’s Metamorphosis), she asked Pluess and Sussman to create a modern aural version of hell. They pieced together a jarring puzzle of telephone busy signals, honking cars and jackhammers. For her environmental interpretation of The Eleven Rooms of Proust, set in a sprawling vacant warehouse, Zimmerman treated sound as a provocative guiding force. “All of the Proust vocal collages led us through the house,” says Pluess. “During rehearsals, Mary would gather the actors together and ask them to describe their own experiences with love lost or love found. We just had a reel running all day. We then edited several hours of tape down to a two-minute collage that we incorporated into the different rooms.” They envision a day when sound is treated by more theaters as a starting point rather than as an accompaniment to the script. “A great next step,” hopes Pluess, “would be to consciously approach theater completely from an audible base.” sd Lucia Mauro reviews theater and dance for The Chicago Tribune.