It’s a sad, yet all-too-familiar story: In mid-March 2020, just a few days after opening for an 18-day run at the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, WI, the Broadway touring cast and crew of the hit musical Wicked were told that the venue was shutting down due to the growing Covid-19 outbreak. The sets, props, costumes, lights and sound gear were left in place waiting for an all-clear signal, but soon it was evident that the delay in returning to the road would be considerable and the cast and crewmembers went home. Each month, more and more dates were dropped from the two-year touring schedule as the pandemic went on and, after six months of waiting with no solution in sight, the sets, gear and accouterments were packed up and trailered off for storage.
Flash-forward 18 months later, and with concerts and festivals beginning to return and a majority of American adults vaccinated against Covid-19, the touring version of this Tony Award-winning musical was back on track.
After a few weeks of rehearsals, the current Wicked tour re-opened on Aug. 3, 2021 at the 3,420-seat Music Hall at Fair Park, in Dallas, TX for a 40-performance run (including weekend matinees) through Sept. 5, 2021. After that, the production is slated to play extended runs at 17 more American cities, with dates announced through July 2, 2023, and plans to tour beyond those announced dates. Meanwhile, the record-setting Broadway production at New York’s historic Gershwin Theatre (where it has been playing since 2003) will resume on Sept 14, 2021.
Beginnings
For those who have been living in a cave over the past two decades, the Broadway musical sensation Wicked expands on L. Frank Baum’s classic novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with a twist, exploring what happened in the land of Oz before Dorothy arrived, focusing instead on the lives of the two women that eventually became known as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch.
This FRONT of HOUSE story actually began before the pandemic-caused venue lockdowns. The tour had been going well, with a long (and enviable) string of sold-out dates. The show travels with full production — including the touring audio package — with all gear bought for the touring company by the producers. The FOH console was sourced from Milwaukee-based Clearwing Productions (clearwing.com), with nearly all the rest of the sound equipment purchased from PRG (prg.com), which also serves as the rental/service provider for both the tour and the Broadway productions, while Autograph A2D (autographa2d.com) offers support for the new DiGiCo Quantum SD7 console used on the tour.
A week before the pandemic struck (remember those days?) I interviewed veteran FOH engineer David Romich, who has been at the helm of Wicked tours for nearly a decade. Unfortunately, with the arrival of Covid-19 venue shutdowns, the tour (and interview) were put on hold, with both myself and the production members hoping for an “any time now” return — a period that stretched out nearly a year and a half. In those intervening months, there were changes (to put it mildly) throughout the industry and the world in general, so when the Wicked tour was back on course, we followed up for an update.
The New Arrival
Romich had been a fan of DiGiCo’s SD-Range for over a decade on various shows, but prior to the 2019 start of this tour, the Wicked tour was mixed on the same Cadac analog system used on Broadway. “It wasn’t an easy decision for our team to replace that,” he says. “It’s a reliable console with a trusted, musical quality.” This particular production — which is the second national touring company in the show’s long history — was built in 2008 with emphasis on streamlining the original travel footprint. “The SD7T was always an option,” but according to Romich, “the availability of the dual-Quantum engine configuration gave us the power and redundancy we needed to make the move.”
Other factors also entered the picture. Speaking on the console selection, “we eliminated at least 1,500 pounds of console and outboard gear, with the 7T also taking on the load of onstage and orchestra monitor mixes,” says Romich. “That alone was a huge savings.”
“We like the sound of the console, and the Quantum engine gives us a lot of security, allowing us to actually eliminate the monitor console we had been using and take our monitoring feeds directly off of the front-of-house console for the Aviom monitors [used by the orchestra],” explains Zach Williamson, current associate sound designer for the Broadway and touring productions of Wicked. “The Quantum processor can support that for our fairly high channel count, while the console’s theatre software gives us features such as aliases and profiles that track individual performers. And the 7T’s flexibility of layout means we can condense the entire production to layers on two fader banks and the master section.”
So far, the 7T seems to have been the ideal solution. “We spent the better part of two years planning the upgrade for the touring show, and the DiGiCo was the obvious winner,” Williamson adds. “We were looking for the console that will take us for the next 10 to 15 years on the road, and the Quantum 7T is it. The Quantum 7T is light to travel with and load in, and its reliability is exceptional, which is critical for a touring console,” says Williamson. Both he and Wicked sound designer Tony Meola have been impressed with the console’s performance for tours that have taken it from Seoul to Sao Paulo, as well as for extended “sit-down” runs in Mexico City and Tokyo.
Romich adds that the “T” theater software made it possible to transpose and edit the show’s 300-plus cues from the production’s original analog system, including MIDI commands, fader positions, plus dynamic channel and routing settings. “The theater software allows us to operate the show with the same fluidity of analog, but allows every parameter to be recalled if we choose. ‘Channel Cues’ is an incredible powerful view that reveals every channel parameter for programming and troubleshooting.”
Wicked’s changeover from analog to Quantum 7T was ambitious. “Once programmed offline, the physical swap, rehearsals and debut happened within 48 hours; we never missed a show,” Romich recalls, adding that he and assistant sound engineer James Wilcox operated shows and navigated the new 7T with ease. “The Quantum is a huge step forward and has all the features we need for a production like this.”
Features aside, the single biggest shift of the move to the Quantum 7T is the enhancement of the show’s overall tonality, he feels. “With our 140-channel count, the Quantum engine handles grouping and summing transparently,” Romich explains. “Switching from analog, we revealed so much high frequency information, which really sparkles. We have so much more detail, and need less processing.”
The Interface
Tony Award-winning sound designer Kai Harada — who has overseen all the original companies of Wicked — worked closely with the show’s current sound designer Tony Meola to spec the required sound components for the tour.
“The digital front-end is a StageTec Nexus system that was originally spec’ed by Kai Harada for use with the Cadac analog console, anticipating it running long enough to change over to a digital console someday, and now the SD7 is connected to the Nexus backbone via MADI,” notes Romich. “It’s really easy for us to drop in a couple MADI cards and upgrade the Nexus for use with the DiGiCo SD-7T. It’s a spectacular digital snake system. Some other shows — like Frozen — are also using that same combination with an SD7.”
The P.A. System
The all-Meyer Sound Labs main P.A. system is comprised of a dual-hung mono center array with two dual-5” M1D Ultra-Compact Curvilinear Array loudspeakers, built into the proscenium truss, with dual-10” MICA Compact High-Power Expanded Coverage Curvilinear Arrays and dual-8” M’elodie Compact High-Power Expanded Coverage Curvilinear Arrays on left and right. Meyer 700HP dual-18” subwoofers add LF punch and impact.
Note: Speaking of mains systems, in time for Wicked’s grand reopening next month at Broadway’s Gershwin Theatre on Sept. 14, 2021, the NYC production is replacing its original P.A. rig of Meyer Sound point-source CQ and UPA speakers with Meyer Leopard and LINA line arrays — a massive overhaul to that system, with Kai Harada overseeing the upgrade.
Besides mixing front of house, Romich also provides monitor feeds to the orchestra’s individual Aviom personal mixers and an overall orchestral mix to the stage. He’s glad, however, that creating IEM monitor mixes for 32 cast members are not in the cards. “If we ever switched to in-ears, it would be a whole new world, because right now we don’t put vocals in the monitors — just orchestra,” he notes.
“The stage monitors are Meyer UPJ’s [two-way 10” with rotatable 80°x50° Vario-O horns] in every wing, while Meyer MM4’s [Miniature Wide-Range Speakers] are used for offstage foldback, with MM4’s built into the deck, firing upward,” says Romich. “There are also some micro front-fills built into the front of the stage that we tap into when the audience is actually over the pit, so there are a ton of MM4’s on this show — as many as 26 MM4’s around the deck at different times.”
Surround speakers are also part of the sound design, and playback is handled using a combination of Meyer Sound UP Juniors and UP point-source speakers. “We install rear surrounds on every level, which we use to deliver one of the show’s most important plot points, along with special effects and reverb for the Oz head puppet and sounds for the cyclone effect,” Romich explains.
Wireless World
“We have a rack of 42 channels, but are only using 32 channels of wireless — this is the smallest wireless show I’ve had in 15 years, even with double-miked principals,” says Romich. “We’re using all Sennheiser 3732 receivers, with SK 5012 transmitters and Countryman B6 miniature omnidirectional microphones. James Wilcox handles all the RF during the show, which can be exciting, especially as Dallas is one of the most challenging RF environments I’ve ever played outside of Los Angeles. I’ve been travelling with a scanner for a decade and currently handle all of our coordination, but it’s tricky here in Dallas and this is probably one of the tightest packs I’ve ever done with wireless.”
There have been complications along the way, especially with the FCC appropriating additional swaths of RF spectra. “We changed out our 600 MHz systems a few years ago for the [900 MHz] STL band. Joe Ciaudelli from Sennheiser recommended that so we could stay with the same receiver/transmitter families,” he notes. “The move has worked very well for us, especially with my responsibility of coordinating with every local SBE [Society of Broadcast Engineers] coordinator for every market we visit. It’s a fantastic solution with an almost-untapped bandwidth.”
It’s a Family Affair
Any successful production requires teamwork, but everything is made easier when the team has worked together for long time. For example, “James Wilcox has been my A2 for the past seven years. Kai Harada helped Tony Meola put together the tour and has overseen all the original companies of Wicked,” says Romich.
As to pulling the team together after an absence of nearly 18 months? “Our entire crew, management and all but one member of the cast returned. The cast and crew family was back in place, but in that first rehearsal, the nuances of the show seemed distant, yet came back after a few minutes,” Romich reports. However, old habits sometimes die hard. “After years of mixing on the Cadac console, it was good that I had used the SD7 for six months before this all went down. It’s funny, but one time, while we were taking a break, I left the DiGiCo console and then instinctively walked back, thinking I should turn the console cooling fans back on — a holdover from the analog days that obviously don’t exist on the SD7! But the honeymoon period is far from over, and everyone is delighted to be back. Of course, the family atmosphere and great vibes makes it a great situation for everyone.”
For more info on the tour, visit wickedthemusical.com.
Wicked National Tour Audio Crew
- Sound Designer: Tony Meola
- Assoc. Sound Designer: Zach Williamson
- Original Production Sound Designer: Kai Harada
- FOH Engineer: David Romich
- A2: James Wilcox
- A3: David Tovarelli
- Advance Audio/System Tech: Brian Moore
- Production Support: Douglas Graves
- Audio Service Providers: PRG; Autograph A2D
The Quantum 7T Difference
In an environment where the real estate for every seat quickly adds up to a lot of money, the DiGiCo Quantum 7T console is housed in a theater-friendly footprint of just 59” x 34.5”, yet packs a serious processing punch.
The main features are fairly straightforward, including: 256 input channels; 38 100mm (plus 14 60mm) touch-sensitive motorized faders; 128 aux/sub-group buses; LR/LCR/5.1 master buses; 48 x 48 full processing matrix; 694 dynamic equalizers; 48/96 kHz sampling; three 15” high-res LCD touch screens; internal hot-swappable dual power supplies; three high-res TFT-LCD meter bridge screens; up to 432 processing channels; up to 36 control groups (VCA-style, moving fader or mute group); up to 48 internal effects; 48 32-band graphic EQs; and more.
Other perks are: eight MADI interfaces; two dedicated DMI slots (each with an additional 64 I/O) from a growing family of interface options, from analog to Dante, along with Waves connectivity for using SoundGrid processing providing 64×64 additional I/Os. There’s also onboard Mustard Processing with modeled preamps, vintage dynamics units and EQ sections assignable to any strip and Nodal Processing for applying unique processing to any node on the console’s aux section.
The T suffix attached to the Quantum 7 name designates an additional theater-centric feature set, offering more flexibility to users in that environment. A Channel Aliases function populates the show with a particular actor’s unique channel settings (EQ, dynamics, etc.). Here, all programming and cue-to-cue changes are retained, they’re just updated with new actor specific settings, so for example, an understudy’s particular tonal and dynamic qualities will appear in their respective voices and can be instantly applied to the new role and updated with all of the correct settings (EQ, dynamics, filters, etc.) but without destroying the show’s specific cue-to-cue programming. Also useful in theater work is the “T” version’s ability to change cues on the fly, along with advanced cue list automation and editing tools, such as the Auto Update System that offers precise control over the update and recall of channel settings in every single cue.
For more info, visit www.digico.biz.
