Pride & prejudice

By: Kate Hamill

Artistic Team

Sound Design/Composition: Jaime Lupercio Director: Lisa Channer
Lighting Design: Wesley A. Cone
Scenic Design: Jacelyn Stewart
Costume Design: Nat Koch-Smith

Design Concept

“Not Your Mother’s Pride and Prejudice.”

It is hard to imagine anyone who hasn’t heard of a Pride & Prejudice or at least Jane Austen. Much of the modern concepts of love in media have been influenced by her work. Kate Hamill’s adaptation however takes all those expectations and flips them on their heads. We embraced the wonderful absurdity that love makes us all endure when in it’s thralls in this show, and we laughed all the while.

Regency Music and Social Dancing

We would be remiss if we didn’t pay homage to the origins of this show. During the Regency Era social dancing was all the rage, but why? Well aside from presenting your status and wealth in either your dress and demeanor, it was one of the few place in society where women were allowed to be free. We reflected that in the music by not just sticking to the “traditional” parlor music of the period, but by also exploring social music throughout the British Isles. Reels, broadsides, jigs, anything that any group of people with a couple of instruments and the ability to carry a tune could play, we threw it into the pot.

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The Amateurs

By: Jordan Harrison

Artistic Team

Sound Design: Jaime Lupercio Director: Luverne Seifert
Lighting Design: Jon Brophy
Scenic Design: JP Haller
Costume Design: Rebecca Gardner

Design Concept

“Confronted with a crisis, What is the artistic impulse? Is it to dive headlong in, and record suffering for future generations? Or is it to make us forget the crisis? to fill us, either by beauty or laughter with the will to live”

The Amateurs is a play that on the surface level is an allegory for the aids epidemic during the 80’s, using a parallel with the Black Plague that swept across Medieval Europe. For Act 1 we stuck pretty true with a medieval aesthetic, with a couple of minor exceptions for scenes that leaned more into the supernatural side of the spectrum. However in Act 2 the play breaks down the fourth wall so the “playwright” can talk to the audience. After which the show returns back to “normal” for Act 3, or at least it should. We decided to take some liberties on that front.

Act one

For Act 1, we decided to keep things pretty tame. Leaning into the Medieval Aesthetic. Sound accomplished this by using instruments not unlike what you would find in the 14th century. However I was not interested in trying to recreate a 1 for 1 copy of “Western European” music. Instead I chose to embrace the vagabond life this traveling troupe of actors went on and made music with some eastern leanings. I wanted to have the feeling of Western European Dorian style crashed into the likes of “Gogol Bordello”.

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King Lear

By: William Shakespeare

Artistic Team

Director: Jenny Lord
Scenic Design: Ross Flemming
Costume Design: Crystal Herman Lighting Design: Hideaki Tsutsui Sound Design: Jaime Lupercio Photography: Dimitri Soto & Marissa Diaz

Design Concept

My concept for this show was to pay homage to it’s archaic roots. The characters constantly refer to nature as it’s own entity and treat it as another character. I decided to do the same thing and gave nature a voice. There were no sound beds for this show, because it would detract from the meaning of the text, instead sound was scored to go along with the text. For instance whenever Lear would get angry, nature would respond with a gust of wind coming in to reinforce his blustering. When Lear was blissfully out of his mind, nature would chime in with an odd bird.​

The Storm on the heath

​Regarded as one of the most epic scenes from Shakespeare. Lighting, Sound, and Scenery came together to create an actual thunderstorm on stage. Sound’s contribution to this illusion was creating a sound bed for the storm that was constantly changing depending on what was happening in Lear’s head, scoring the storm. Aside from the actual storm itself, the director and I decided to have the storm begin in Act 2 Scene 4 in the form of a tornado siren and weather warning. The siren would start on Lears line "I will not weep." and would dip in and out of the scene until the end when Cornwall, his family, and Gloucester took refuge in a storm cellar we had located onstage. On the final siren, we had a weather announcement, and then turned the house lights to start intermission. Then at the end of intermission, we simulated a power outage in the house, and brought lights and sound back in with the actual storm.

Other Cool Things

Another effect I am proud of is a plane flying by and bombing Cordelia’s troops. This is not part of Shakespeare’s Original script, but the director wanted a large commotion to happen and signal the defeat of Cordelia’s army at the hands of Edmund’s. Taking place in a modern setting I decided to create a plane that flew from front of house right, across the back of the house, went backstage, drop it’s payload on stage right, and fly off stage left. This was back when I was using QLab 3 and still having to do pan cues with fades.

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Valor

Adapted By: Maija Garcia

Artistic Team

Sound Design: Jaime Lupercio Director: Maija Garcia
Scenic Design: Mina Kinukawa
Costume Design: Sara Bahr Lighting Design: Karin Olson Photography: Tom Wallace

Design Concept

This show was written as Valor, Agravio y Mujerby Ana Caro de Mallén ,a celebrated 17th-century poet and playwright of the Spanish Golden Age, and it  explores the myth of Don Juan from a feminist perspective and honors a woman’s courage (or valor) to avenge her betrayal. Later it was translated by Barbara Fuchs and the UCLA Working Group as The Courage to Right a Woman's Wrongs. Then for our production it was adapted to simply Valor by the director Maija Garcia. The idea of this show was simply “what’s old has become new”, taking the 17th text and Baroque aesthetic, and freshening it up with SOME modern sensibilities. I accomplished this by pulling from shows from Spanish television like El Chavo de Echo.

“It’s like sound is another character on stage with a perfect sense of comedic timing.” -Maija Garcia. 

As it turns out. Spanish comedia works well with the sensibilities from Mexican sitcoms.

Music

​In this production I also got to work on developing music with the inestimable JD Steele, and together we truly got to create the score and landscape for the world of Valor. 

Symptoma 20

Artistic Team

Sound Designer: Jaime Lupercio Musical Score: Pan-Pan Gou Prologue & Epilogue Directed by Jesús López Vargas "Symptoma World" Directed by Jesús López Vargas & Brandon Ray Alba Art Direction & Design by Athziri Morales & Jesús López Vargas Story Written by Jesús López Vargas Choreographed by Brandon Ray Alba Cinematography: Jesús López Vargas Lighting Design: Athziri Morales & Merle DeWitt III

Design Concept

TThis project started as the brainchild of one of my former classmates Jesus Lopez in response to the Covid 19 pandemic in March 2020, and was created as a means for us artists to express our anxieties, guilt, and other complicated emotions during such traumatic events. My responsibility for the project was to help establish the world of “Symptoma” by marrying the audio recorded on location by the shooting team, the compositions of Pan Pan Gou, and the actual edit of the film itself. The main challenge with this film from a sound design perspective were that the audio recorded on location was far from perfect, however I had the idea of instead of “fixing it” why not turn into the spin, and embrace the “glitchey” qualities of the story, and instead make it part of the story instead of a distraction. Through a combination of various white noises, glitch, effects, and  other miscellaneous effects, the sound design helped establish the world of “Symptoma”.

Medea

By: Eurypides

The PErcussion

The shows score was produced by a suite of 3 percussionists using the following kit.

• 4 timpani drums (with blankets for variable muffling)

• Crash cymbal

• Claves

• Güiro

• Cajon

• Triangle

The kit was all reinforced using a combination of AKG C214’s, and Shure SM58’s.

In order to alter how the percussion sounded, a combination of reverb through the console and Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig was used. The reverb helped to blend the different styles of percussion being used, while guitar rig gave a bite to the more savage moments of the show.

Other Cool things

This show was a challenge because sound was driven solely by the percussion, however no percussion score exists for this script, so we had to make our own. I worked closely with the music director to score out the show, and then translate this information to the percussionists. We experimented with the different surfaces of every percussive instrument we had available, trying out different mallets and sticks, to produce as many different sounds from them as possible.

The Fall of Wallace Winter:A Musical

By: Austin Savage

Artistic Team

Director: Ross Flemming Music Director: Nathan Stell
Scenic Design: Vero Hernandez
Costume Design: Tania Hernandez Dolz Lighting Design: Marissa Alejandra Diaz Sound Design: Jaime Lupercio Photography:Vero Hernandez

Design Concept

The American Dream. Sitcoms have been selling this idea to us for as long as we can remember, but what would happen if we took the characters of a 50’s style sitcom and made them face “reality”? Such is the case in The Fall of Wallace Winter. Some of the challenges in this show were attempting to make the audience feel like they were watching a sitcom. Sound assisted with this by making a series of different foley sound effects that called back to such tv shows. This included canned laughter, slide whistles, crashes, applauses, flatulence, a "working" television set, and more. On top of all this, the show was written as a musical, so of course, we had to include “a house band” in the mix.​ The show starts off as a sitcom, but as it goes on, the Winter family begins to see “the self imposed illusion” they live under, and one by one break free from it. By the end, the show loses all of it’s cartoonish elements and becomes based in reality.

Foley, Foley, and More Foley…

One of the biggest challenges in this show, was selling it to the audience as a sitcom. One of things I did to help this was to add foley effects to the show. In the end there were over 30 different original foley effects played during the entire show including:
– slide whistles
– frying pans
– wolf whistles
– doors being opened and closed.
– windows being open and closed
– Canned laughter
– Studio audience reactions
– and flatulence

I also worked closely with the fight choreographer to create some effects to use instead of traditional “naps”, further selling the illusion of the show being a sitcom.
Most of which were recorded by me, and then applied Using
Q-lab.

The Musical portion

The Fall of Wallace Winter had a “house band” that consisted of

• acoustic guitar

• violin

• keyboard

• electric guitar

• harmonica

• Kazoos

One of the Biggest challenges in the show was that the director didn’t want any of the onstage actors to be miked. Instead what he wanted was for the house band to be “reinforced” in the space, but not overwhelm the actors onstage, which proved a challenge in mixing the show riding that thin line between overwhelming the actors onstage, and not being able to hear the house band.

During pre-show and intermission, the band would often play upbeat covers of normally slow sad songs, using Kazoos instead of vocals. Some songs covered were Creep, Mad World, and Hallelujah. The list would often change on a day to day basis and the only warning I would get for instrument changes were the artists picking up and putting down their instruments. It was a very fun and exciting experience, and never before have I enjoyed an intermission that much.

Bloody Shakespeare

ADapted by: Jay Stratton

ARtistic Team

Director: Jay Stratton
Scenic Design: Vero Hernandez
Costume Design: Crystal Herman Lighting Design: Merle DeWitt III Sound Design: Jaime Lupercio Photography:Vero Hernandez and Merle DeWitt III

Design Concept

Imagine some of the most brutal death scenes from William Shakespeare’s plays; Othello strangling Desdemona, Titus killing Demetrius and Chiron, or literally all of Macbeth. Now turn that into a haunted house. That was Bloody Shakespeare, except we turned the horror and gore factor up to 11. This show didn’t really have a concept behind it beyond “what can we do to make the most demented haunted house possible”. One of the notes we received from the director was “I want someone needed to be evacuated from the staging area.” Unfortunately we came close, but we never got that far. Regardless, this was a very fun show, and it was quite the challenge turning a small black box theater into a haunted house.

Turning ONe space into five

The hardest challenge I faced during this show was making UTEP’s Studio Theater feel like 5 individual rooms. I helped accomplish this by giving each “room” it’s own array, further selling the illusion that each playing space was it’s own separate room.

Each room had to have it's own unique feeling and soundscape.

• 1st Room: Macbeth "By the pricking of my thumb". I went for a stereotypical haunted house “cave like feeling”, This scene acted as introduction to the play.
• 2nd Room: Titus Andronicus. Started off as a “cooking show”, but then became quickly bloody when Titus murders Chiron and Demetrius. When walking into the room, the system played a “Good Eats” sounding introduction as the audience entered the room.
• 3rd Room: Macbeth, “the Cauldron Scene” the witches show Macbeth his “future”. We returned back to the creepy haunted house ambience.
• 4th Room: “Othello Kills Desdemona.” Weirdly enough the “tender” moment of this show. Not bloody at all, instead we played with how something beautiful and pure could be ruined.The only sound effect used for this room was a peaceful evening ambience.
• 5th Room: Macbeth Kills Macduff’s Family, The challenge in this scene was getting the sound of a crying baby to happen onstage. I didn’t want the sound to come from the array because it wouldn’t sound natural, so instead I hid a small bluetooth speaker underneath the baby's crib, and played it when it was needed.

Other Cool things

This show was conceived, written, cast, and rehearsed in about a month. It was an excellent experience in learning how to take a show from concept to finished product in a short amount of time, while still maintaining a high standard of quality. Because of unexpected success of this first iteration of the show, it has become an annual project at UTEP.

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