The Wolsey Theatre put on their biggest musical yet with 17 talented Actor/Musicians, over 40 instruments and an array of LED video wall. As the sound engineer, I was line-mixing the show and maintaining the 31 ways of radio and other sound equipment used on the show, along with the Sound #2 Pete Hazelwood. There were many challenges – most of which were related to the micing of all the woodwind instruments. How do you mic and pack a Clarinet? See the pic below to see what we ended up with! A quick trip to Screwfix from Pete, and we had some clips to go round the Clarinets near the bell. We used some protective grippy material – like you’d use on your car dashboard – to protect and grip the wood. All of the radio mics on the actresses were hidden in the hairline to try and minimise and visible microphones on the actors. The majority of the actors had home made ear hangers for their mics due to short or lack of hair. Pete did a great job of continuously checking the positioning backstage throughout each show.
Hopefully you can’t spot many in the pictures!

Director: Pete Rowe
Musical Director: Greg Palmer
Sound Designer: Drew Baumohl
wolseytheatre.co.uk/shows/sweet-charity/