Gloria

Gloria is the story about a magazine office that experiences a shooting and how the survivors of the shooting are affected in the months following and how they each process their grief. The ethical dilemma of "who has the rights to tell a story" becomes apparent as each survivor speaks about wanting to write about or document their experiences. The team wanted the design to feel subtle, with lots of office ambience to lure the audience into a false sense of security so by the time the violence takes place on stage, it shocks the audience and we wanted the sound design to dictate that.

Photo Credit: Jeanine Hill

Design

Gloria is a unique dark comedy based around a tragic shooting that takes place at the end of the first act. As a design team, we wanted to embrace the discomfort of the show and immerse the audience into this world. This meant the design would need to work in tandem with lighting and scenic to accomplish this goal. It was clear that the sonic content was going to be very grounded in realism to emphasize the mundanity. Scenic designer Gretchen Ugalde set the scene by enveloping the audience in the office space in an alley configuration. I wanted the sound system to reflect the same level of immersion. This meant implementing the use of wireless speakers to source sounds like office phone calls and printer jamming sounds to specific areas on the set hidden by set dressings to mask the small speakers.

Gloria - Top of ShowAndrew Yoder

00:00 / 00:57

Gloria Shooting *trigger warning*Andrew Yoder

00:00 / 00:26

Paperwork & System Design

This show also presented a unique challenge of developing two separate sound systems. One, being the main system that music and ambient sound was put through. This was a split system for the two different seating sections providing a two main center speakers and a left and right for each audience bank. The second being a movie theater-like design pulling focus to one side of the stage where a projector would show a mock teaser. Director Andrew Borba wanted to add a tongue-in-cheek movie teaser at the end of the production to show the sensationalism of tragedy used by Hollywood. This was an opportunity to pull the audience out of the office and into a movie theater. This became a collaboration with projections, lighting, and sound/composition to build this transition and direct focus to the projected teaser.