Directed by Alex Timbers, the David Byrne/Fatboy Slim musical Here Lies Love boldly reinvents the idea of a Broadway musical. It began as a 2010 concept album with famous singers like Tori Amos, Cyndi Lauper and Sia, then debuted as a rock musical at the Public Theater in 2013. It has since grown and evolved into the spectacle it is now, having traveled to London, Seattle and now back to NYC. The story is about the life of Imelda Marcos, the initially wealthy then impoverished Filipina girl who became the First Lady of the Philippines between 1965 and 1986, during which she and her husband stole billions of dollars from the populace and eventually ruled by martial law. The show takes place in a club atmosphere that deceptively lures us unto her bedazzled world the way she rose from poverty to fame and fortune, but the story turns darker as the power-hungry Marcos regime gets brutal.
To highlight the $20 million show’s disco and karaoke vibe, the Broadway Theatre underwent a radical facelift where all floor seats were removed and the floor transformed into a rectangular space where “clubgoers” located there stand to watch the show and groove to the music if the moment moves them. They also have to move as the frequently rotating platform in the center feature performers in different locations at different times. The club space extends from a platform in front of the proscenium arch to another platform in front of the mezzanine. A DJ is located at a stage right platform. The Broadway Theatre’s 1,765 capacity was reduced to 1,099.
The crew started working on the show in March, with the month-long load-in six weeks later. The audio team then did quiet time, with testing and adjusting to get things dialed-in. “We had cast on stage two weeks before we had audience,” says Cody Spencer, who is co-sound designer along with longtime friend and occasional collaborator M.L. Dogg. Here Lies Love officially opened July 20, and The New York Times hailed it as “a rollicking karaoke dance party” that “interpolates karaoke as a means of replicating for audiences how it felt for Filipinos who lived through the Marcos regime.”
Breaking Ground
Here Lies Love is the first Broadway show to implement L-Acoustics’ immersive L-ISA software. “This one was very unique due to the multiple different spaces,” explains David Strang, VP sales, audio for audio provider PRG North America (prg.com). “Therefore, the implementation of L-ISA was a little bit different than you would see on a concert tour or in a standard theatrical presentation.” But the show breaks ground in using two L-ISA systems working in tandem to create the audio experience for the whole theater, which is split between stereo in the seated mezzanine sections and immersive on the floor.
The immersive audio mix is not loud or overwhelming. As actors sing from different positions, so too does the mix reflect where they are. If two people are singing on opposite platforms, the mix is separated the same way. The show utilizes 220 speakers separated into six zones.
“Typically, you have stage monitors and then proscenium forward, and that’s your system,” elaborates Spencer. “Here, we have the floor area, which is the complete 360 where everything happens all around it at all times. The two side galleries get a kind of mono mix, because they feel so much bleed from the floor. There’s also the VIP area [below the mezzanine], the front mezzanine, the rear mezzanine and the mix position. Typically, with L-ISA you’d have one processor. We use two processors – one doing the 360 on the floor, and a second one doing a left/right/center mix [received by] the VIP mixer and then the front mezz and rear mezz. They have different settings — it’s more of a frontal system for them because voices coming from behind you up in the mezzanine would be confusing.” He adds that a lot of the sound effects and music encircles people at all times, but the voices come forward.
Version 3.0 of the L-ISA software arrived on May 23 and “was kind of built for this show,” according to Spencer. “It has all these functionalities I’ve been asking for. We got them in time for us to start tech, which was a little nerve-racking.” He says the great support from L-Acoustics, which included frequent set visits, made the production process much easier.
“What makes L-ISA awesome is you can spatialize the sound, so we don’t always have more sound coming at you,” declares Spencer. “At times, the sound is 360 all around you, and then it goes to an intimate moment like ‘Here Lies Love.’ As the sound goes to one stage, it directs you to that area and stays nice and tight, and in the middle of the song it gets bigger, then the music circles back around you a little bit. So we’re not using level as much as we’re using its immersiveness by moving the sound around. It feels more encompassing even though the levels are exactly the same.” The vocals are 3 to 5 dB on top of the music, but the music being all around people makes it seem louder than it actually is.
A small monkey wrench was thrown into the production because — despite previously being a karaoke-type show to pre-recorded original music — Broadway union rules required some live musicians for this version. So, more than a week into previews, a guitarist and bassist were added on top of an actor playing guitar. (Two other actors play drums, and an exuberant drumline with four other musicians emerges twice during the show.) Adding those mics worked out, but the drummers weren’t miked, as they were loud enough, and the audio team had also maxed out the 96 inputs on their L-ISA systems.
The cast use Shure Axient AD2 handheld mics with KSM9 and BETA 87A capsules for the karaoke vibe of the show, but they also wear Sennhesier EM3732 head mics with SK5212 TX transmitters which act as backups in case any of the handhelds fail. The designers note that the audio quality is thankfully indistinguishable between the two.
With their low ceilings, the parallel gallery positions, located about 12 to 15 feet above the floor and running along its length, are not hit with many direct speakers. “There’s not a lot of music that we’re sending to that,” says Dogg. “Being right off the floor, they get most of the music from the floor itself. The vocals just helped to pop it out a little bit and add more clarity, and there are sound effects there so that they’re not completely lost.”
In The Mix
Spencer and Dogg are using a DiGiCo SD7T Quantum console to mix the show, used in a hybrid way. Spencer notes their usual audio chain would be console / processor / processor / amps, but here, it’s console / processor / processor / console / console / amps, enabling more control. Dogg can “inject sound effects in a different way, and we’re able to really control it,” says Spencer. “In addition to doing mixdowns via L-ISA, we can do mixdowns via the other console now, because we can sum things in and send things separately. The balcony L-ISA system, as we call it, covers three to four different zones. We can control all the zones independently, but it all gets the signal from the same balcony system. But the matrix isn’t going through the console, so we’re able to do that as opposed to going directly to the amplifiers. It works out really well because it’s all MADI to and from the processor.”
From the console they convert from MADI to AVB, and AVB to all the amps as they have 50 LA4X amplifiers across the room and have some downstairs and upstairs. “It was easier for us just to throw AVB streams at everything as opposed to running copper everywhere,” notes Spencer. “It was really versatile to be able to quickly change because we had a lot of changes throughout the process. My crew was right on top of it and able to really quickly and efficiently readjust the streams and make everything happen via AVB and the amplifier, which was great because I haven’t really used AVB, which is not a huge thing on Broadway yet. But I think we’ll see a lot more of it, because of its ease of use over Dante; and consistency and latency is just phenomenal.”
Beyond the LA4X amps, a variety of L-Acoustics speakers are being used on the production including 20 KARA IIs, 28 X8s, 20 X12s, 26 A10s, 28 A15s, 24 KS21s, 24 X4is and 18 5XTs. All the amps are fed via AVB. “This was necessary, as it’s the cleanest and smartest way to do the L-ISA to amplifier length there,” says Strang.
A major challenge was “the variety of how everything changed from seat to seat or from whatever position standing,” says Dogg. “That, and you won’t actually know what it’s going to sound like until you have a full audience. An empty room is an empty room, and you can’t fully judge what that’s going to be like. The actual previews were very different from when we were teching it.”
Spencer adds another challenge was how “everywhere there’s an actor where an audience member could be; and everywhere, there’s an audience member where an actor can be. The actors needed to feel comfortable with the level they’re hearing, but then we’re presenting the show to audience members in six different zones. The actors are pretty much in every single space — minus the VIP and front of house — so we have to have the fine balance of: ‘Do they have enough music? Do they have enough vocal?’ But also, ‘Can the person sitting two feet away from them hear all the words and all the music?’ That’s just a challenge that took a while. Luckily, the cast is amazing and they really worked with us. They were really understanding and would come talk to us.”
A Team Effort
In terms splitting the sound designer duties, “Cody handles more of the system, mics and tuning, and I handle more of the content stuff,” says Dogg. “But we constantly comment to each other about the other person’s area. Because there’s such a vast difference between being on the floor and up in the mez, or being in the galleries, between the two of us, it’s another set of ears for every single show. And then also our associate John Kemp, our assistant Jordan Bernstein, and our programmer Stephen Jensen. We had up to six sets of ears [including FOH mixer Mike Tracey] for every performance. Even with the six of us, we still probably could have used more time to really fine tune each of the sections.” Further, he adds, “Even if you have people on the floor, they’re going to hear completely different versions of the show, depending on where they’re standing.”
PRG became officially involved with this production three months before they normally would on a Broadway show, but they had plenty of heads-up in terms of what Spencer wanted. PRG has a strong relationship with L-Acoustic across multiple markets, and L-Acoustics procured everything needed for the show despite the supply-chain issues plaguing audio companies post-pandemic. Even with some unexpected modifications, the manufacturer came through for PRG and Here Lives Love.
“Although L-Acoustics has tried for many years – and developed products that are certainly credible and pointed very much towards the theater market – they hadn’t been that involved with Broadway or West End theater,” notes Strang. “The good news is this provided an opportunity for us to springboard our relationship with L-Acoustics and get Cody and his project exactly or very close to exactly what he was looking for.”
For more details on the immersive speaker setup, go to https://fohonline.com/featured/here-lies-love-envelops-audiences-with-broadways-first-l-isa-immersive-design/
