Behind the Scene

	Steve Shapiro

Name: Steve Shapiro

Birthplace: Brooklyn, New York

City of Residence: Coconut Grove

Occupation: Resident Sound Designer/Head Audio Engineer for the Coconut Grove Playhouse

List some of your credits and awards:

I have been designing sound in South Florida for 16 years, working not only at the Coconut Grove, but for the Caldwell Theater, Actor’s Playhouse, the New Theatre and others.  Before that, I spent three years at the Cleveland Playhouse and three years at Syracuse Stage.  I have been the monitor engineer for the Ramones and Pia Zadora.  In 1996 I did the main mix for the South American tour of Phantom of the Opera, and have composed the score for Allen Ginsberg’s only play, Plutonian Ode.  I am a four-time winner of the Carbonell Award. 

How long have you been a sound designer?

Since 1980

What got you interested in sound?

I have always loved music.  My momma tells me I used to sing to the radio in the back of the car when I was a kid.  In college, since I had amassed a large record collection, fellow students from the drama and film department (I was an acting major) would always be asking me to put together some mixes for their projects.  I sort of just fell into it from there.  Didn’t hurt that I was a lousy actor.

What is involved in creating the sounds in a show?

I’m afraid there’s no easy answer for this.  It could involve anything from surfing the Internet for sound effects and music, or staging scenes that happen offstage to going out with a microphone and recording ambient sounds—harder than you think in a post 9-11 world.

How much of your direction for sound is in the script and how much is of your own design?

This also depends on the project.  Whatever’s in the script are definite necessities, but in most older scripts, these could just be doorbells and the like, what we cal bells and whistles.  More modern playwrights, like Wendy Wasserstein, Terrence McNally and Tony Kushner, often script complicated soundscapes.  More often than not, it emerges from a collaboration between the script, myself and the director, who has the ultimate decision.

Do you collect sounds, the way John Travolta's character did in Blow Out, the only film I can think of that dealt with a sound man?

Blow Out was a rather simplistic depiction, but yes, I have done stuff like that.

What shows present the biggest challenges?

Shows that take place in the heads of the actors, shows that are less realistic.  Hispanic and German writers have created some of the most abstract shows have ever worked on—Nilo Cruz’s works, Cloud Tectonics, Mench Meier and Deathraft are some of the titles that come to mind.  In K2, I had to create what it would sound like on a mountain at 35,000 feet.  It was a challenge to create that and still have and environment where we could still hear the actors.  In Deathraft, I created a cityscape from the year 3455. 

What inspires you?

Money.

What are the hallmarks of good sound?

The best sound, to me, is transparent sound or, sound that is not obvious to your ear, but obvious to your brain and heart.  One of the biggest challenges in South Florida is to make the actors heard to an audience that’s getting both increasingly hard of hearing and that’s used to hearing their entertainment at home in Dolby 5:1 sound.  Add on top of that a soundscape and you have an incredibly hard juggling act. 

What do you consider your proudest professional moment?

Winning my first Carbonell Award.  I had been petitioning to include sound design in the Carbonells for four years when they finally relented.  Also, my father had died just two months before, so winning the first sound design Carbonell and dedicating it to him is a moment I’ll never forget.

What show or project have you most enjoyed working on and why?

My favorite project to date was Angels in America.  There was so much opportunity for creating an abstract universe that was still based in reality. 

What is the best thing about working in South Florida theatre?

The family of friends and colleagues that I have gathered over my 16 years here.  Nothing makes it more worthwhile.

Current and Upcoming projects?