Maxine R. Gutierrez

Audio Engineer | Broadway A1

I first came to know Maxine when her tour of Catch Me if you Can visited our local touring house in Columbus Georgia. She was the front-of-house operator/mixer at the audio console that night and it was one of the best mixes I had heard in that theater. Every cue was spot on. My seat in the theater afforded me a prime view of her working the console and it was evident that she was thoroughly enjoying the show and her job.

Maxine’s Bio.
An electrical engineering graduate of Penn State, with interests rooted in music and arts, Max started her career working as a studio intern at The Clubhouse. There, she worked on projects in various genres, with artists and producers – independent and mainstream – gaining experience in the recording studio, through digital and analogue formats. Concurrently, Max also worked at a children’s amusement park. From technician through managerial roles, she received a wealth of experience in leading and supporting a team, from day-to-day performances to park-wide theater maintenance, including props, sets, wardrobe, and parade floats. Additionally, she was certified as a Class I Safety Inspector through Pennsylvania Ride & Safety, ensuring safe practices and regulation knowledge for employees and patrons alike.

Max began touring as a sound engineer in 2007 – playing all fifty states and internationally to Colombia, Costa Rica, Japan, Panama, and Venezuela. While on the road, she was offered her first contract on Broadway. So she left the touring life in Tokyo and moved to New York City, presenting new challenges – Broadway and a commute (instead of constant traveling). After mixing the entire run of the Tony-nominated, King Charles III at the Music Box, she covered the mix at The Color Purple, which won the Tony for Best Musical Revival. Max, then, returned to the junkyard at the recent revival of CATS, at the Neil Simon Theatre, rounding out her total to almost 1400 performances of CATS. Max, then, took over as A1 on Tony-winning revival, Once on this Island, presented in the round at Circle In the Square. Since its closure, Max has taken over as A1, returning to the Music Box, mixing the Tony Award-winning, Dear Evan Hansen.

Outside of the theater, Max also mentors through the Open Stage Project and speaks to students through universities and organizations such as Penn State, Pace University, and USITT.

Machine generated transcript

Chat’s, there’s Q&A. There are polls there. Raise your hands and then I’ll be playing some videos. We have the chat. You can go ahead and enter, you know who you are and say hello and maybe where you’re coming from. We’ve got a thing to see who else is with us on the right side. But if you put if you have a Q&A, go ahead and put it in the Q&A and we’ll probably have some questions. And then in the chat, that’s for you guys to chat with each other and with us.

We’ll see that. But we’ll be bouncing between the chat and the Q&A. Maxine is an audio engineer working on Broadway. Currently, you’re about to build a new show because obviously Broadway is not quite open yet.

Right?

What’s the show you’re about to build?

Actually, I so I’m currently the sound engineer for Gavin Hanson, which is slated to return to performances in December, which is wonderful. And I am also going to be the sound engineer, Sergei 1″ for the upcoming new musical M.J.. Michael Jackson. Very good clarification. Michael Jackson, the musical, yes, yes, that’s great.

That’s great. So I this this webinar and series of webinars talking to people about their careers and how to get started in them, which is geared towards folks who are studying or up and coming into the industry. And we we’ve chatted up beforehand about the fact that most of my audience will either be high school teachers, middle school teachers, or perhaps even those students that are studying. You don’t necessarily have to fall into those ranks or anyone that’s interested in what we do at Stage Seminars.

Stage Seminars was founded a number of years ago to present training for design and technology backstage and such basically focus towards the non performer. And I spent a number of years teaching that and I always focused on the kids who didn’t want to be on stage. And then we moved on from there. I noticed Maxine, while she was on tour with Catch Me, if You Can, as it pass through Columbus, Georgia. I was teaching down there and I had season tickets to all the tours that came through the venue and some tours sounded terrific and some tours not so much.

Maxine mixed to one of the best sounding shows that I heard in that theater, and I tweeted about it during intermission. And aAndy Leavis is an old friend of mine, although I always call him Andy, I don’t call him by his last name. He tweeted back saying, Oh, say hi to Max for me. And I looked over and the person I saw didn’t look like a traditional max.

So it turned out it was Maxine. But the thing that I did notice was that the way that she was mixing the show, she was moving, you know, her hands were just gliding over the over the board like an artist. It was terrific to watch. And my seats were in such you know, I’m a designer tech guy. I like sitting and seeing where the action is. So I was watching her thoroughly enjoy herself next in the show and even singing to the words, whether outloud or not, I don’t know.

I couldn’t hear. But it was it was fun to watch it better that way.

I posted something on one of the sound forums and I got a note a few days later from Maxine saying, hey, this came came my way and thank you so much. So that’s how we met. We literally only met face to face, I think, last week here on as we talked about this webinar just on screen.

I know. Yeah, it’s amazing. Is it so real life soon?

That’s why that’s why I reached out to Maxine when I was thinking about who would I like to bring on as someone to talk about the the pathway to audio. And so, Maxine, can you tell us a little bit about your pathway from how did you get first of all, what did you study? I mean, your bio says a lot about about. But you didn’t study this in school?

No, I’d say I’d say my career trajectory to where I am now is actually quite unique. I would say I did not. I was actually very much I was very much into music and and physical media arts, not necessarily when I was younger. I wasn’t fully into multimedia arts yet. I was very much into drawing. But I was introduced to music. I was I was a fan of music from a very young age, listening to music. And I didn’t start playing music.

I want to say until I was about 11 or 12. And and yeah, I started off with the clarinet. I wanted to play sax, but my parents couldn’t afford it at the time. So I got I got to play clarinet and I was like, OK, but I loved it. I ended up going from clarinet to bass clarinet to various other instruments that were bigger than me. I went for. Yes. So I really loved music and but and then in high school, I had the music program was very new.

I went to a small, not terribly small, but a Catholic school. I went to Catholic school from first to 12th grade and the public schools had much bigger music programs than than the school that I had. And so I stayed in the music program. But and I didn’t encounter the theater program really that much I. I remember playing playing for one of the high school shows, I think it was my first exposure to anything goes and I was playing bass clarinet.

However, there was five of us playing for the show and they gave us sheet music for for a large band. So it did not seem very cohesive to me. You know, it was piano myself as bass clarinet and alto sax, a drummer. I didn’t quite get the arrangement because it wasn’t arranged for the few people. And I remember I remember at intermission of the first performance that I did, I was like. I know I can’t do this and not in a way of like I can’t do this, I just felt that it was incomplete.

And oddly enough, with for myself, I actually took the alto sax as sheet music and my sheet music. And I started transposing harmonies to go with it because because as a bass clarinet in that that and that music, I was basically just playing whole notes a lot.

But either have you done composition? Have you been a composer at all?

I have not. But when I so after after starting playing the clarinet, I also started playing piano the following year and my piano teacher realized he could see that I didn’t necessarily enjoy playing piano. But he also taught me music theory, which I didn’t know that was odd at the time. But I other than just learning how to play music, I was learning all of the all of the keys. I was learning how to how you know, how to change keys.

I was learning everything about the science of music, and that’s what interested me most. And so I ended up, you know, really being interested in that. And by the time and and in high school, I was also just very into I was good at math. I was good at science. I am first generation American. And my parents, I come from a family of of medicine and engineers. And my my dad’s a financial manager of a hospital.

So, yes, you know, I wanted to make my parents proud. I wanted to, but I was also afraid of the starving artist, whatever that means, because that’s not necessarily a thing. You know, I, I, I was I was hesitant and scared. I wanted to keep music in my life somehow, but I went to school actually. My first major was chemical engineering because I really enjoyed chemistry. But I ended up graduating as an electrical engineer because what made me realized that I liked sound was actually working at a theme park.

I ended up working at a children’s theme park and I was a technician and I learned all things, I guess all things backstage. And I didn’t realize it at the time. So I was running shows. I was fixing props. I was, you know, doing all kinds of things that deal with stage. And I had no idea this is what what happens, you know, backstage. And so that was my first exposure to theatrics. And I I loved it and I loved learning all of the different techniques and how things went from point A to point B and the progress to get there.

And so I was I basically thought I was like, OK, I want to be as the an audio engineer, a sound engineer. And in my brain that was recording, you know, that’s all I all I thought was was, you know, being in a studio. So after I graduate, I changed my major to electrical engineering, my my school at the time, I didn’t know, you know, sound design or theater theater sound as as a major.

It wasn’t something that was exposed to me. So I moved to electrical engineering because the closest thing that I found at my school was a grad program for acoustics engineering, which is very different. But I thought, OK, if this is the, you know, a stepping stone towards that, then I’ll I’ll do that. I’m you know, I still have all my engineering credits, so those will carry over. And I graduated and I ended up interning at a recording studio, which I had a great time at a lot of work, learned how to make things and and be on the spot.

I learned about signal flow that definitely the point A to point B. It was a studio that was on a Neve console. They did Pro Tools and they did tapes. I learned how to, you know, reel the tape and and punch and cut and scotch tape in the right place. You know, where the remote was, this giant thing that you had to cart around and had a giant snake attached to it. And I was like, this is a remote.

And yeah, it was a really great experience. I learned we we did any genre from jazz to screamo to voiceovers. I remember a voiceover guy came in. I had no idea what we were doing that day, and it was just this one person. And I, I, I set up three different mikes so we can figure out what the engineer wanted to use. And then once we started, I was sitting in the studio like. Oh.

I know that voice, that’s that National Geographic guy well, I usually don’t see a face attached to that voice that was that was definitely an experience for me. Yeah. So so I went from recording studio and theme park and working at the theme park. They were associated with the live children’s shows, the tours, Sesame Street, Live, etc. And I always just thought in my head I was like, if I ever got a chance to tour, I feel like that’s, you know, a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Like that’s something that, you know me from small town, you know, that’s something that I would have to try if I get offered it. I kind of do it. And I was offered it. And so I was like, I, I got to do it. I got to try. If I like it, I like it. If I don’t like it, then then I tried it, you know, and and yet it was my first tour was the very first Kidz BOP live tour.

It was a concert tour. It wasn’t necessarily, you know, you know, it wasn’t karaoke characters on the stage. We did have you know, obviously we had our set list and everything. We had six children, singers, plus three young adult singers, and we had a full, full rock band. So, you know, this was a good step for me coming from studio to come to live and kind of figuring out a touring process and working with so many people.

And that was those were almost all in arenas. So this was very new to me and to to be on a bus and moving all the time. And when that closed, I thought, OK, music, I’m still going to go into music. And I thought, I’m going to move to L.A. and I’m going to go into music. And I got a call from the National Tour of Cats and they said they needed a an 1″. And I was like, Are you sure?

I was like, I’ve never done it. I’ve never done a musical. I’ve never done, you know, something this large scale in my brain, you know, was pretty big for me. And I it was also a position of being and only it was the I was the only audio person on the crew. So, I mean, that’s a that’s a big responsibility. And so in my brain, I was like, I could take this tour.

It goes through June and save up more money for my move, for my move to California. And so I was like, OK, how about if we just do that? I still have my stage blacks. Why not let’s finish out the year and. I got on there and I was so green, I had 10 days to learn, load in loadout and mix of the show and all of those days didn’t have performances. So who are you?

Who are you learning from?

I was taking over Wes Shaffer, who is I think he was most recently on the Aladin tour. And and yeah. So so this was very much a new experience for me, sleeping on a bus, you know, the full one night, our bus and truck tour experience. And and yeah, it was kind of like I had those days and then I want to say a month. And the music supervisor came, Kristin Blodgett, who is the music supervisor of many of Andrew Lloyd Webber, shows around the world.

And so I had a whole lot of notes and I was actually really excited about it because I never went through the tech process before. I didn’t know what it was actually supposed to sound like, what should I be listening for? And, you know, I was I was going I was going through the motions as as a muscle memory and hanging out with her and getting my notes. I was like I definitely learned to listen a lot more and look for things and find balance and and how and how that was expressed in music.

And and that’s where I, you know, mixing turned into my console being my instrument, you know, that’s where I extended my music background and really, truly listening and and and really mixing the show. And so I stayed with cats for three and a half years because every single time I learn something new, you know, I kept developing, you know, mixing skills, being more efficient with my loda and being more efficient with my loadout, you know, being able to talk to local crew members and understanding, you know, how to, you know, work through troubleshooting with a system.

I didn’t know, you know, relying on the shop for some troubleshooting help and and replacements and how all of that process worked. And so the National Tour of Cats was really my training ground. And and, yeah, I never moved to California. I kept getting offers for another year of touring and I loved it. And I left I only left cats because I felt that I wasn’t being challenged anymore. I know cats. I know cats inside and out.

And so that’s when I moved on, even though it was being offered to me as as as a continued job opportunity. I just thought I know it. And that they offered me another another tour with a different show and an ESTA. And to me I’m like, but it’s the same designer. I don’t know if I’m going to have have my real next step. And so after after leaving cats, I didn’t have anything for a little bit. And and as as much as that was kind of scary, I was like, but but I need to challenge myself.

And then I want to say a month or so later, I got a call from another touring touring company and they offered me the a 1″ position as the for the second national tour of Rock of Ages that had a team of three audio team members. And that’s that’s essentially kind of where it progressed. I ended up touring for eight years on different shows. And and luckily enough, I was also offered my first Broadway show while I was still on tour.

And so I ended up leaving tour in Tokyo. I ended up leaving tour and moving to New York to have my first show here.

Let’s jump back before we completely leave cats. I’m going to put you back to cats because we have a video and let’s see if this video is going to play properly. And I want to show our audience, this is a video that Maxine made of her hands mixing the show, as well as showing some of the script in the markups. And I think you’ll be surprised at how busy, busy mixing a musical will be for some for some of you.

Here we go. Let’s make sure this works.

A cheerful face counts of what I’d like to practice our and grace has passed a note to the. Last week. Now, I’m going to pause for just a minute. A couple of quick questions. So what are your fingers doing here?

OK, so a musical mixing we tend to go with line by line. So essentially every for every line I am going on and then off and going to the next line on. And in the scripting, you can see the numbers on the left hand side are the fader numbers of what I need to throw. And then the the triangles on the right hand side, I have it a triangle, because as you can see at the bottom right hand of of the.

Of the Fater Bank is is my next or my go, but so I just have a. And the number is my key number in the cue stick. So every time I hit go, the console changes what is contained in those faders. So as I’m going, I am changing and pushing. And then that yellow seven eight is just a it’s basically what I have when I hit the bottom of the page of a page turn, I write in like these are my stand figures.

This is what’s going to be on the next page.

At the top right now, I haven’t been to a couple of questions, one is that the go button, the 38, 39, 40, as far as these kids go, and I saw your hand move down to that lower right button in that little button stack. That’s the right of your right hand.

So you have preprogram that.

During rehearsals or even prior to that, during the tech process yesterday, I want to say for this one, I wasn’t and I wasn’t involved in the rehearsal process. Only at war, so the matter. This is this is also to clarify, this is the Broadway revival of. And and so what ended up happening was that I had the script, which was slightly different than what I had on tour, and and so I had the script and I could set up each cue how I wanted it.

Essentially for for the lines, you know, whatever was most comfortable for me to be able to. Create a choreography. Now, a number of our.

Visitors, we have, I think, have nine others other than. The two of us. Yeah, we have.

Some may have experience with digital consoles.

Some may just be on analog consoles. Nowadays, almost everyone is digital.

You have all these faders that are way out of this songs, and I see that. To the left of your left hand, all those factors seem to be set at unity. And then over on the right side, almost all of them are in. Except for a couple and are those four water, all those things?

OK, so essentially on this console, you know. Met many digital consoles, nowadays you can put. You know, whatever you want on the faders, really, so here on the center bank that I’m primarily operating off are my control groups or what you would call a DEA or DEA, whatever terminology is like programable. Show Fenner’s. And my practice is the way that I have it set up is that, you know, you can see that I’m doing in the lines with my left hand.

And so for me, I do left side.

And right side. Because I have in the middle of I generally have left.

And this is what worked out for me for four cats and also. I think it just ends up being my practice as well. I tend to have. The vocal fighters on the left side and the.

In this particular console, this is a digital. So the. Multicolored square buttons. To the right hand side, as you can see on the left. To the right hand side of that Fater bank, you can actually see those buttons for. What I’m looking at and that and the. What those things are, basically it’s.

So I in on caps, the first the first layer is actually.

Voxels, the second layers of. Beyond that might be a different setting of.

But for me, I tend to have vocals on the left hand side and the band.

And I’m going to hit play the lower in volume, we’ll see if this works. First of all, let’s try to leko.

I said, I see that. Well, for the further. Did you or you’re not reaching up to change? And I know so many people who have this great city. They flip the page, but you’re not doing that. Where are you seeing your script?

So in this. When I recorded this video, I was well off. I was mostly upset by the. In the.

But generally, I will keep my script in this console.

There is a script. That is that you can use that will just float over. And it just puts on. I’m going to bring up another.

See how this is a little bit of that, it’s really fun.

Yeah, yes, if this upscale Republicans try that again.

Just to show have to close because we’re star O.J. added, so we got someone should we please show up? Yeah. What about Marilyn Manson? She’s in London to marry McKay. I know Sinclair. She sings. She dances. She and has been for the past.

Now, what I find interesting about watching this video is that since there’s a lot of this is spoken word, so each person, Mike, is being brought up and his voice in a panic, whereas in the cat’s 1″, it seemed like those groups of people seem pretty much

yes. In this incarnation of Tesfaye, many tapes that the group person is saying, well, yes. So each time that I ended up reprograming or programing, there would be maybe like one person that stuck out and then the next line would include that person and have a different tact.

They kept building. We’ve got someone right in the who can replace this.

I clicked on the wrong play button. This was not the one that had the script in the picture. Let’s go to this one. All right, but the pictures coming our way, there’s the split. And this is from this is there’s also this legally blond and everyone agrees to. So I don’t know what I find interesting about this one is that the operator on the right hand?

That’s why there was one. We see so many different states respond to the videos, right?

Yes, I love that the shaking the.

Let me start by saying this person has come here and they’re coming in. I was teaching and I took the. Come over here, please.

This was all for sure. I’m sure a lot of people. Can you talk for a moment? There’s the flip. There’s a page. Yeah. So when you’re doing this with a show where you’re flipping out and you said in your video that you had, you know, the market for Wall Street getting mixed views on the next page. Yes. You just market fire, know that you do this.

That’s right. Basically, I put the marker down at the bottom so I can read them. And also, you know, once I’ve seen what I have, you know, when I already have the next faders up to be able to turn the page, keep looking ahead, you know, as we’re mixing, we’re always. A cheerful face counts so. So here I am, I. So. I think also for training room trousered.

He happens to be.

Well, you know, in their own notation. David.

You know, we’re all we’re all not the same, so, you know, my my scripting has has evolved even since then to to think it changes. It occasionally changes per show depending on what is needed for for the show if added notations. I know for. So I did a Christmas Carol filming of The Christmas Carol just this past fall. One man Christmas Carol that I had all sorts of notations in because I had visual cues. I had oral cues.

I had you know, I had many goes because the sound designer Josh read very, very smartly done design. But it is it was a one man Christmas Carol production starring Jefferson Mays. And and so, you know, having one person doing every single role. Many of the roles also had a different vocal processing that was done through Ableton Live. So as far as, let’s say, Marley and Scrooge are are they’re not having a conversation. It’s kind of just like I’m scared and I’m telling you things.

So, you know, every time, you know, you know, Marley’s voice was happening. It was processing, you know, Jefferson’s voice into a Marley effect. And then when Scrooge had to respond, it was like once Marley was done talking, boom, go Scrooge voice clip, you know, a lot cleaner, maybe having a little bit of reverb and then go Marlee’s back on and then go here. But here’s Scrooge again. So that was that was another busy one where there were a few things that had, you know, there were layers of sound effects and and music that some were, you know, either a scripted cue, but some, you know, are going to be visual cues or an oral cue where I used little ible icons and a little like ear.

And I would say what you’re looking for and there are some examples that you had to some of the examples you were going to share. Have any of those?

I have actually that I have once on this island. However, that did not have those were all cue lighted cues. But I, I can share that.

Let’s take a look at that. This next set of pictures that Maxine is going to share with us are just some of her work product. And for the you know, for our teachers that are with us, you should look at these and introduce them to your students. Have a lot of students. I find once we empower them with the methods of pulling this stuff off, they take off. They just love to do this stuff. So let them build your shows and let them build your their scripts and have them work with each other.

And quite often there might be teams of people. Now, Maxine, nobody calls your cues to you do that.

The audio there will be stage managers that will give me a cue light for sound effects cues or, hey, we’re starting the show or kind of cues, but not necessarily every single one of our cues that they might have a list of where our cues are. But they’re not they’re not actually calling them or giving us a cue light. We just have that in our own script. No, go ahead for for a cue light. For those that don’t know, a cue light is a light bulb, usually red could be blue, different colors for different departments on occasion.

And it’s plugged into a cable that that is controlled by switches from the stage manager console. Now, a lot of times in schools, people are wearing headsets all over the place. But the front of House Operator Audio needs to use their ears to listen to the show so they’re not wearing a headset. If you if in your schools you have you want to create another position, you could put two students out in front of the house. One could be wearing the headset.

I if you don’t have a cue light system and cue the other one who’s using their ears, but it’s very important to use their ears. And for multi performance shows, they can switch off those two positions. Sometimes a big challenge in school systems is having enough jobs for people to do during the desert phase of the production is how I like to call it, which is where people get to be. That’s right. So people get to be on stage or during the show performing in one way or another.

So it’s it’s another way to double up your crew and give more people something to do. But go ahead. I interrupted. Maxine, what do we see here?

Yes, also, I saw that there was a question in our there is a question before we we move from there, since we just you know, we did watch myself and then that YouTube video or two YouTube videos of of of the mixing the rationale behind sliding the theater instead of a mute button. OK, so wait, when we’re moving the volume up and up and down, even though it can, we can do it really quickly, you know, as if as if it were a mute button.

It actually just it it gives a better gradual cut off. You’re not necessarily hearing it off, you know, as a mute button would be. And then also, you know, as we’re moving up and down, back and forth, you know, we it’s just a much smoother transition than a mute on off switch, you know, because, you know, depending on the environment you’re going there might there might even be a little bit of noise around the microphone and having kind of like a gradual procession in and out is is less harsh and a much smoother aural experience.

I want to say. Does that make sense?

It makes sense to me. And I’ll add to that, is that the mute button, your natural inclination? My natural inclination and from what I’ve seen from your hands and everybody else’s, is to keep the palms of their hands at the edge of the desk and or the heel of the hand with the fingers moving up and down in the sliders. And if you have to reach all the way up to the mute button, you’re no longer anchored to the board.

So if your fingers are down on the sliders without, you know. Yeah, exactly. You’re not trying to hunt and peck. I find that the in working with students, you’re less likely to hit the wrong wrong slider if you’re using the sliders versus hitting the wrong mute button.

And then in addition to that, you know. As much as much as we create, you know, a a as as consistent as we want to say, like we’re going to have everyone at the same volume, you know, a mike position change or the execution of a line might be a little bit quieter or louder. And so, like, you have that that you have that ability to make a smoother transition and adjustment. You know, let’s say, you know, that one person really projects this line so they don’t have to be as loud as the next person, you know.

You know, you can make you can make that adjustment very quickly and and and smooth that out or or if you know you know, if let’s say let’s say somebody might move like far out of position. Let’s say it pulls back and you don’t see it. The front of house engineer is not going to see that it’s moved into the wrong position, whether whether it’s here or here or wherever you have your microphone, let’s say it goes out of position and that that can happen, whether a quick change or anything or or a might cable gets pulled and it’s moved, you know.

Going to going to your instinct level, it’s not loud enough, you can just like adjust it and get that line out to be able to, you know, keep moving forward and then know that there might be an issue and be able to tell, tell, tell backstage that this needs to happen and there needs to be an adjustment or just seems in the wrong position.

The great question, solid question, yes, definitely.

So what are we looking at?

OK, currently is one of my pages on once on this island, which was just the recent revival. And and essentially, again, you see on the left hand side, you see fater numbers. Those are my numbers of what what I have or the where I’m mixing. You also see on the right hand side, there’s another one, another one, the ten in the circle. That’s another fater that I marked out over there. Because in this production there is a lot of in addition to the bands, there’s a lot of vocal textures that are happening as well that ensemble members and we also had a vocal booth at the time also doing performing these textures that backtracked the entire scene.

So you can see I put an arrow where they started and where to have that fader up. And then I have that arrow down to like you can just park it there and just worry about the left hand side, worry about those lines. And because they’re going to keep singing just like the band is going to keep playing, you know what I mean? So that’s why I have that there at the bottom of the page. I have a Wawn, too.

That is a warning for Faida too. Is going to be on the next page, top of the next page. And then those little green boxes armi goes. My color code is green means go. So so I have you know, they ended up, some of them are just in the middle of a line and and so those ended up happening exactly where I where I would put them. And then you see a green square at the top right of the page.

If there are a lot of cues, if there are a lot of cues, I will put a little notation on the upper right hand side, something small. Just so you know, this is the cue that we’re in at the top of this page, you know, so just in case something doesn’t seem right, are you in the right queue? I’m supposed to be in this queue. Where am I? On the console. So it’s just a little notation at the top of the page of the top of every new page just to say, hey, you’re supposed to be in this queue just to check, you know, to make sure you’re on the right, too, especially if you do have a lot of cues.

It’s helpful, you know, even even during your tech process, you know, am I in the right queue or starting in a new section? Stage manager called this page. Am I in the right queue? You know, you don’t have to flip back pages to know you’re in the right queue. Here’s the queue you’re supposed to be in at the top of the page.

That’s great. That’s very helpful. We have about, I would say, 12 to 18 minutes left shore. So let’s so you have a bunch of other pictures I wanted to ask you about here about what kind of gear you use, what a shop looks like. Sure. Show.

Sure. Just to round out this page that that blue number and that pink number. That blue number is my reverb. I have a on that show. I had a specific reverb Vader. So that’s where I would approximate to drop that fader and then pink pit that ended up becoming my my my color code notation. Green means go blue. How wet is is the space and then pink. That’s kind of where I went to. Yes. So so yeah.

And then as you I’m clicking in the wrong window and then this was the other. The other script page that I had continuing with the arrows, all of these yellow boxes are just, you know, what is that? Q I’m looking for and and for here, if they had a to head a little box around it, hey, there’s a light on this go. And then I had a description of exactly what that girl actually does.

Are your script page numbers going to match like the the acting script page numbers

in and this incarnation, the show I took over once on this island. So I created a new mixed script libretto for for myself and and anyone else that was going to be training. However, when I’m starting a show and and we’re all checking and learning it together, I maintain that I keep the same exact pages as the stage manager. That way when they are calling a page is going to be the same spot.

I know what line I’m looking for. And and usually those those scripts will have stage directions and everything for me if it does not pertain to me, you know, because most of the time I’m just looking at faders and looking at the script, looking at thetas, looking at the script. I will just cross those out because it’s one less thing for my eyes to start reading through. And I need to know when the next time sound needs to come out somewhere.

So I’m going to cross out anything that I don’t need and then make sure that what I am reading is exactly what I need to correspond with my hands. Then it’s OK outside of that, what pictures? Here is here’s my front of house from once on this island with a little fish eye, a little little unique lens here, but once on this island was in the round. So. So, yeah, this was a different experience for me to be mixing in a booth outside of removed from the audience because usually I am mixing within the audience.

So this was very a very new front of house location for me. I have this was for a Christmas Carol, very much in the dark. You can see how many screens I had going on at the time where I have I was try I’m trying a new digital way of doing scripting and I’m trying out for score. But I have my iPad here. This little monitor here was actually a key monitor. This is the the screen for the console, the the the CL five.

And then this is my Kulab right here. And then I had Ableton over here and then over here I had some additional script updating my my own laptop right here. This is my cat’s front of house during tech. So we had the extra sidecar to the set. Oh hey, we moved forward to the seven which is the double oh seven. So we had a lot of console here at front of house, which was great because I am generally working here.

But there’s definitely enough space and Fairbanks banks to for for designers to be able to come up to the console. I don’t know why my my previa keeps jumping ahead. iCloud is yelling at me. That’s what it is. So just like that. Anyway, here is the shop for Cats. Before we came into the theater, we are at the shop. This was our rax ro. Essentially these were all the racks that were in the pit, not the pit in the basement where audio had set up.

So we have all of these install racks that we built in in the shop. It’s looking a little messy, but we did have everything running. You see all these cables here? Essentially, we have a smaller space to put everything together in the shop and hook everything up, including all of our extension cables, in case we did need to use those in the theater. But we hooked every single, every single thing up. So we knew that every single piece of gear was working as they should be.

And if we needed to troubleshoot anything, then we could troubleshoot it there and not find out while we’re already in the theater and finding the exact spot, you know, within each each chain to know to know what we’re looking for. Yeah. So so there is there is a lot going on in the signal flow of of of these. Yeah.

Fantastic, doesn’t really have any questions, can post them in the Q&A and such or, you know, throwing a chat. See, I have my list of questions. So what is your favorite console to use? Do you have a favorite? I.

I have a console that I am used to definitely I don’t I I’ve been very the funny thing about about gear is that especially myself and being on tours or being on shows that have been, you know, at least generally, generally a year or longer, you know, I, I get a piece of gear and I have this system for a year. So like being on tour, I have this 1″ system for a year. And an oddly enough, console wise, when digicam came out with with their consoles and and applying them to theater, basically I started on.

Did you go around 2011, 2012, sometime around there. And every single show I’ve been on has been on a type of digital show, oddly enough, with all the different designers that I’ve I’ve worked with, I’ve I’ve been on digital for a very long time. So I just have a lot more experience with a digital CO. I’ve been on the seven, eight and 10 in in on Broadway tours and on on on Broadway as well. But this next show on MJ, I am going to be on an avid S6, which is a little bit more of a transition for me.

Not and every console is yes, there are going to be different features that every console has. But at the root of the console, at the base of the console, you’re going to have the same functions, same basic functions. You’re going to have your EKU, you’re going to have, you know, digitally you’re going you’re going to have a lot of the same basic functions and then features. Are going to be similar, but they might be in a different venue or they might have a different term for it.

So, you know, it’s a little I’m not as efficient, but I’m going to pick it up and it’s going to be fine. You know, mixing a show with the Essex L actually only has eight eight footers. I want to say per bank when I’m used to about 12 from from a did you go so and it’s not that’s that’s just their way of building a console. It’s not a negative thing. I can expand my functions and use more faders if I want to, or I can truncate it down.

I might just make it. Hey, I have more goes to do that.

So how. Well two questions. One is working with. A lot of times, especially in school programs, you’ll have someone who is, let’s say, the lighting designer, and they immediately go in, they stand behind the board and they’ll have a sound design or the sound person will go and stand behind the board and do these things. Yet you’re working with the designer. And in that shot where you had the sidecar, you said the designer could come up and play with things and do stuff I’m not sure.

And a Broadway contract, whether they’re allowed to come and touch the board. You know, there are some unions that don’t allow the designer to touch it. Right. But how how do you work with the designer? What, in your view, is the difference between the person standing behind the board running faders and the difference between them and the designer? How does that work?

OK, definitely there with with how, you know, the designer can choose, you know, quite, quite a few things. I, I end up working with associate designers and programmers and, you know, one or both of them will be on on a contract that that is able to touch the console. So that that is definitely helpful when basically the majority of the time, once the console is up in the theater, I am tethered to it.

You know, if you know, because most of the time than we have, we have got mikes running. Some kind of sound is going to be running once once we have the console up into it and tech is happening. So I’m kind of just like at the ready, paying attention for page numbers, what scenes we’re doing, etc.. So I’m kind of staying within, like my my bank, you know, and then the designer associate or programmer is kind of, you know, tends to be either at my side or on a remote station like that sidecar or even on the editing software that many digital consoles are are utilizing nowadays, whether it’s on an iPad or on a desktop itself.

Yes. So that I’m kind of in charge of like the show run. But when it comes to other possible creative decisions, you know, whether it’s like a river of choice or a specific sound effect or or what speakers they’re coming out of, you know, a designer can can make those decisions. And and then myself, they associate and the programmer will implement those those decisions.

That’s fantastic. We have a question that popped up giving you a relatively unusual academic path. Is there anything you wish you’d learned in school that would have been helpful to you to get you here now?

Well, that’s a good one. Yes, because, yeah, my my path was definitely different. And I I want to say I did do a lot of learning, you know, on on the gig, on the job, whether it was theme park or or on tour, even in the shops. You know, I’ve I’m still continuing to learn as we go. I mean, again, I’m not an expert as an at the school, but I am going to learn it and figure it out.

And and that’s I mean, that’s kind of I feel like that’s kind of our thing. That’s what we do. As in the in this age of technology, it’s always changing, always updating, always innovating, and where we might not always be that same step ahead. But I mean, sometimes I feel like I’m continuing to catch up, but I know that I’m not going to run into every single piece of new gear. I know that I’m not consistently on the same or new gear.

There are definitely many consoles that I’m less efficient at, but I’m better because I’ve been on these jobs and have have played with a piece of gear, you know.

So let me ask you this. It’s sort of the same question, but a totally different approach to it. If you have someone, there’s I’m coming that’s going to work for you. What would you like them to have to know already when they walk in the door?

Oh, that’s a hard question. I mean, and we’ve all been there and, you know, bright eyed and trying to be assertive and also not trying to, you know, you want to you know, you always want to fit in, but. Huh. I don’t know. Because I aways feel like. You know, I know I don’t know everything either, so so it’s kind of just like the open mind and the willingness to learn and and, you know, to what once we’ve learned something new, then let’s keep layering upon that kind of thing, you know?

You know, even myself walking into a new theater as a crew member, you know, if I am if I’m in a Lodin, that’s not my show or a loadout. That’s not my show. I’m kind of just like if there is a certain way that they would like it to be done, I’m going to ask, you know, because, you know, let’s let’s get it done the way that you like it to me. You know, I know it’s a hard question.

And sometimes you want somebody who knows how to solder. You know, you want somebody who knows, you know, doing the electrical stuff. Sometimes you want to know. You need people to know about sine waves and signal processing and and all that depends on what what area you are needing them to do, troubleshoot things.

Right. And and, you know, sometimes even as a team will receive a new piece of gear and say, we’re going to put this in. OK, let’s go get that. Let’s get that manual. Let’s see what this piece of like what what ports does it have in the back, you know. You know, and the same goes with even the upgrade to a new to to a piece of software. You know, you’re going to have to play it, play with it a little bit before you figure it out.

And and that goes, I think was I telling you about my friend in broadcast how, you know, he was he was using, you know, a. Wireless that he’s used before and I’ve used before, but we had this new software and and he did not know how to save a file like he was saving the file and saving file. You’re looking for saving a workspace. It’s saving the information, but you want it to look like how you want it to look like.

It’s just a different term. Yeah. Yeah. So we’re all going to run into that technology and manufacturers are always going to release new things and some are going to be buggy and some aren’t. And we all figure it out on the spot and then we talk to the manufacturer and then we come back and we try it again.

So there’s a last minute question on how do you keep things fresh, basically? And I’ll take you back to the fact that you were offered a new contract in cats but decided that you wanted to move on. Sometimes they’re fresh. Is something doing something else?

Right. So if you’re if you’re in a show for a long period of time, you know, I totally I totally understand that and how to avoid, you know. Defaulting to a muscle memory as opposed to staying involved in the show, you know, they’re they’re going to be times when you’re tired and there’s but keeping in mind that, you know, the very likelihood that this audience has never seen the show, you know, we need you know, we’re going to put on a good show where, you know, stake staying connected with your performers and staying connected with your musicians and just just, you know, keep keeping it fresh can be a challenge, but it doesn’t it doesn’t have to be.

You know, as long as you keep that approach that, you know, it’s it might not be new for you, but it’s new for a lot of other people in this room. So so, you know, it’s not like to keep that energy going. Is is always, always good to keep in mind. You know, I I think I think a part of that also is is coming to front of house like physically coming to front of house at places or at five whenever you you do for me.

For me it depends on how close, close or far away from the house is is when is when I get up. Sometimes it’s a trick and sometimes it’s right out the door. But yeah, I find that even walking into the house to get to the front of house, an expedition to get to the soundboard and just being aware of your surroundings in the sense of, you know, whether it be a child seeing the show for the first time to a fan, a die hard fan, that is, you know, you maybe already have seen him last week with him or her or they if you if you’ve seen them so recently.

But, you know, they’re there because, hey, you know, I haven’t seen this person perform in this role or or even the same excitement as a new swing performing a role that they haven’t done before. That’s a completely new energy. And keep that energy inside you as well, because you might be on your toes on a new performance, you know, and that’s not necessarily that’s not a bad thing. Yes, we want consistency, but, you know, they’re going to they’re going to make their role, their role.

So, you know, that’s exciting for them. And, you know, that’s exciting for us as a company together.

Well, this has been an amazing hour.

Well, it’s been an hour. We did it in an hour. I it brought up so many other questions that I hope to explore as we move forward in this these series of workshops and webinars that we’re doing. I certainly hope that you’ll entertain joining us again. And there are some some areas of expertize that I want to tap your brain about. And it’s like those things about C-clamp processes and IQ and and all these areas that I know people would like to learn about.

And also for our teachers to be able to teach their students how to how to attack. So this has been terrific. And there’s questions on my list that I didn’t get to. You know, maybe in the future will we’ll be able to address those again. Any parting words? Any last bits, I guess.

I mean, just keep going, you know, don’t let anything, you know, stop you in your tracks. You know, we’ve we all we we all get to an issue or something that intimidates us. You know, it’s one step at a time where, again, like I said before, we’re all learning something new at some point or we’re learning a lot of things new at some point, just, you know, one step at a time and and build from there, you know, with with anything really, but especially when it comes to sound can be a little bit daunting.

And I understand that. And looking at a console, it can be a little bit daunting. But once you break it down into, you know, each piece, it starts to make more sense. And as you as that happens, you can just build from there. So don’t get too intimidated. Don’t forget to play. Playing with something is is the is the first step in learning it.

So yeah, that’s great. You know, it’s the I used to say you can’t break things but in, in audio I can play seizures but you know I break things, don’t worry.

So but and Stephen Boon says IQ. Yes, we do want to do a session on IQ. I know we want to do a session on on compression and limiters and limited maybe having a backup go button, because I’ve done that a couple of times.

Yes. Oh, it’s a great story. Well, listen, I want to have you back and we’ll do this again and keep us posted on your on your activities. And this was fantastic.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thanks, everyone, for attending this.

Yes. Now, there will be a replay posted. It should be here in the meet. Format somewhere, somewhere, and then I’ll post it on the Stage Seminars website, it’ll be open to the public for about a week and then after that it’ll be to our high school, middle school, high school teachers, mentorship program members and possibly event technicians, resource group. And that’s all, you know, being developed and being built. So keep an eye out for those emails.

You’ll get emails and email me with your questions and your requests. And Maxine, if you have other ideas and what you’d like to talk about and perhaps do when you have a board in front of you, be able to show us some things and how some things works. I know that everybody is very hungry for that sort of thing. Sure. And and now that I know that you’ve done your cat’s recording of moving, knowing how things are, you could would be really helpful.

Yeah, actually, there’s this there’s a if anyone knows cats and if not, there is a big dance number before the end of Act one called the Jellico Ball. And usually many are well entertained by me mixing the jellico ball. That has zero words whatsoever. So so that that one’s really fun because I essentially within that number, I’m like I feel like there’s not really a spot necessarily to just hit goes and just change mixes. I mixed the jellico ball live every night.

There was maybe one cue in the and within within that entire number. But it’s I want to say it’s something like an eight minute dance number and it’s kind of just like me balancing, rebalancing, featuring, featuring, restoring, you know, but I’m kind of just like here, here I put the band on the entire surface and I’m like, here we go.

That’s great. Well, showing my age a little bit is that Cats on Broadway, the first the first go around was one of the reasons why I got into lighting.

Oh, that was I mean, it had great lighting, but also understood the value of darkness, which in my in the same vein for sound I went to to the class of mentees that I had this year, which was wonderful. You know, they would ask about some things, about sound design. I was like also understand the value of silence. It may come back as well, you know, just like darkness and light, silence and sound.

It’s it makes its own impact at the same time. Definitely.

All right. Well, thank you so much, folks. I’m going to end the session and we’ll end up popping back into the lounge. I’m going to take a seat at one of the tables. If anybody wants to chit chat, your cameras will then turn on. And as well as your microphones, Maxine, may have to disappear on us or may join the lounge. I’m not sure what your plans are.

I can I can join for a few minutes. And then I actually I have to have to leave. But don’t be a stranger.

Yeah. Yeah, likewise. And Maxine’s bio was it was in an email and I think there’s a link to her website, to a portfolio website somewhere in my materials. If there isn’t, I’ll post it on the page. And if you go to how long you and Evan Hansen for a kind of it kind of just it depends on timing. I’m awaiting some confirmations with MJ and and the exact confirmations of rehearsal process, etc. for Dezhurov and Hansen. So there might be an interesting period of time where I am running between both and we’ll see what happens.

But but yes, I, I’m proud of the work of of dear Evan Hansen and I really enjoy being there. But also MJ is going to be my first originating new musical as I’ve done many remount and revivals and takeovers of shows. This will be my first time production, engineering and starting up a brand new musical.

Well, I’m good. I’m very excited to hear about the stories of how it is working on an original piece along with, you know, like a designer who’s who’s putting the concepts to use rather than remounting something that’s already been developed. That’s that. I’m looking forward to having that webinar.

Yeah.

All right, everyone, I’m going to click the end session button and then we all get dumbed down, I think, in the lobby. And then there’s lounge and mass confusion will arise. Thanks for thanks for being with us. Thank you, Max.