Set on the French Riviera and inspired by the movie with Michael Caine and Steve Martin, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels tells the tale of a professional trickster, his cohort in crime (a chief of police) and the young charlatan who wants to learn more about the art of the con, particularly as it applies to rich single women. Co-starring John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz as the con man and his protégé, both of whom compete to swindle a young heiress out of $50,000, this Broadway musical is wittier and more fun than you might think, and it features some catchy musical numbers to boot. The man responsible for giving these dirty tricksters a clean sound is engineer Bob Biasetti, who has worked on The Boy From Oz, Baz Luhrmann's La Boheme and Annie Get Your Gun, among many other shows. Before a recent matinee, he spoke to FOH about manning the boards for this glitzy, Hollywood-inspired show.
What new challenges did this show present?
This was the first time we're using a new DiGiCo D5-T console, so that was probably the big challenge.
It's great. It's intuitive for someone who's a mixer, unlike some other digital desks. It makes sense getting around it. I know that Andrew Bruce had a lot to do with the design of the TC. The regular DiGiCo console was a rock 'n' roll console, then Andrew Bruce got involved and they developed the Digico T and TC. "T" as in "theatre." So it was very intuitive when it came to our theatre needs, between programming software and mixing capabilities.
The producers seem to like it because in the past, we would probably have 12 or 13 seats of space that you would have to take up with mix position. Now we've cut that down to half the size, so they get back four to six seats of what they'd normally have on a big show, which for them is money in the bank. It's a big plus for them because they get to actually make a lot more money.
What kind of software are you running?
It's DiGiCo software. It's all proprietary to the console. It's PC-based, unfortunately, but no one makes an Apple-based software [laughs].
How many channels are you mixing?
We're using 120. We have about 18 in the pit and around 30 in the cast. We have two of our principals double-miked. John Lithgow and Norbert are double-miked with a custom A/B mic-switch box in case we ever lose one of the microphones. They never really come off stage, so we would never be able to get to them to swap their mics out. We have DPA 4061 microphones on the whole cast.
Some of the cast members go out in the audience.
We have three people in the cast who come out in the audience. We have Norbert in the box, one actress as an usher and another lead in front.
Have you had any problems with the wireless mics when people wander into the audience?
We've had no RF problems at all. It's just been mostly about gain structure and knowing where you're limits are–when people are standing right in front of the speakers, knowing how loud you can go. At the same time, when they're up there, we're trying to make them sound like where they're coming from. When Norbert's in the box, you want the source of the sound to come from up where he is, but at the same time let the entire audience hear it.
Do you use any processing at all?
No. We've done that in the past, but this time we're trying to keep it as acoustic as possible while letting the audience hear what's going on.
Last night's show featured Laura Marie Duncan filling in for the role of Christine Colgate, and she did a great job, but you're probably not used to mixing her.
That's always different. She has a totally different voice than our regular leading person [Sherie Rene Scott]. That always presents interesting changes. She was nervous, and we were trying to figure out on the fly how to set that voice in the mix and make it balance with everybody else.
Do you have understudies come in very often?
Not so far, but eventually people will go on vacation or get sick. That presents new complications every time, especially for Norbert because he wears this hat for most of the show, so we're going to do a lot of extra work with the understudies ahead of time to mix some new presets and new EQ changes to complement how he sounds and his understudy's hat, which he's going to wear through practically the first act.
Do you worry about any bleed in the orchestra pit?
When you mic the pit well, you use the bleed to your benefit to help the overall sound. Mic placement and mic choice are a big part of that. You have 17 or 18 musicians in a very small area, and you have a lot of microphones down there. You have bleed, and you can't get rid of it, so by good mic placement and picking the right microphones, you use the bleed of the microphones to enhance the overall sound of the orchestra.
With so many microphones and so much sound, you don't want it to be loud, especially for the older audience that's going to this show, correct?
Yes. Part of what we're doing with the console is if mics aren't being used in certain areas, we're muting and unmuting mics with the automation package as per what we need in the specific numbers. All the reeds are double-miked–there's a high mic and a low mic. We have a lot of percussion mics, so if percussion pieces aren't being played, we're muting those mics. We're trying to keep the overall amount of mics that we don't need down to a minimum. In production, in the beginning, it's a little hard, but once you take a look at the score and you figure out what people are playing and those parts, it's okay. It's just a lot of programming work during production.
Are you using different mics in the orchestra than with the cast?
For the orchestra we're using a bunch of different mics–Neumanns, DPAs and AKGs. Just the complement of normal mics that we like to use.
Are you using speakers all around the Imperial Theater?
We have a whole surround system of EAW UB12s. We have 20 downstairs and 20 upstairs. We're sending orchestra reverb to enhance everything around the theater without getting it too loud.
Some shows are getting too loud these days, don't you think?
Yes. A lot of times there is no sense of location. Someone could be standing upstage left, but it still sounds like you're hearing it out of a proscenium speaker that's on the other side of the stage. Localization doesn't seem to be as prevalent as it probably should be.
