Lestat premiered at San Francisco's Geary Theatre, where it employed a multifaceted production that supplemented the usual costume, set, and lighting elements with video and multimedia elements and a dynamic surround sound design by Jonathan Deans. Often cited for his design work on numerous Cirque du Soleil productions, Deans has also had a long history mixing and then sound designing for musical theatre, from Ragtime to Kiss Me, Kate.
Meyer Sound self-powered systems are typically Deans's first choice for his sound designs. "The ongoing fulfillment of my high expectations for a speaker and the guaranteed delivery of its specifications are very important if I am to concentrate on creative production and not be distracted by restrictions resulting from loudspeaker problems," Deans says. "I can't be losing creation time to the technical side of my job, and Meyer Sound products grant me this creativity."
In order to meet both musical and dramatic needs, which included dreamy "swoon" sequences following vampire attacks, Deans specified a complex sound system utilising an unusual three-system loudspeaker configuration.
Deans designed a main system to carry dialogue and effects, consisting of 26 M1D ultra-compact curvilinear array loudspeakers and six 700-HP ultrahigh-power subwoofers: an array of four M1D cabinets to cover the mezzanine and upper balcony, below which is an array of five cabinets for the orchestra and lower seating. A centre cluster of eight more M1D units provides coverage to the middle of the mezzanine and orchestra areas.
"The M1Ds have been fantastic for us," says FOH mixer Simon Matthews. "We were allotted a certain amount of space to put our speakers behind the proscenium, and without having a line array of that size we wouldn't have been able to get nearly the coverage we have."
The second system is intended to act as a 'virtual orchestra shell' reinforcing the 18-piece orchestra situated in a mostly covered pit. Mounted above and below the M1D arrays on either side of the proscenium are three UPJ-1P compact VariO loudspeakers, with two more along the proscenium's top. Four M1D cabinets are used individually for frontfill from the stage lip. Each of these loudspeakers receives a separate feed.
Nearly all of the speakers around the proscenium are hidden behind a large set piece that looks like velvet drapes and covers the entire proscenium, extending into the hall.
The third system is for surround and under-balcony coverage, constituted primarily of UPM-1P ultra-compact wide coverage loudspeakers. Three rings of four UPM-1P cabinets each provide coverage of the orchestra area, with additional UPM-1P and UPJ-1P units along the sides. This system carries a combination of the main and "orchestra shell" mixes, which poses an interesting challenge. The main and shell systems are each aligned in time relative to their respective proscenium speakers. In order to maintain these alignments while feeding the surrounds, outputs from each system are delayed an amount appropriate for that system, then the feeds are mixed in the Matrix
