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Musical Musings

Posted by DCA Theater on October 29, 2011 in July-December 2011 Season, The Spirit Play

Submitted by Michael Huey, Composer and Sound Designer for The Spirit Play

A giant blank slate. That’s pretty much how it starts with every project. It’s a sort of sunny optimism that inevitably gives way to sheer terror with nights spent wondering if you’ve ruined the entire show and doubting you’ll ever want to write music again. But don’t fret! This story (like every good story), has a happy ending.

It began in the spring of 2011. Over several days I spent lunching on Thai food and green tea bubble tea with our lovely playwright Emily Schwartz where we pondered the magic, music, and mysticism of this upcoming endeavor. Right off the bat I learned that I was ever-so fortunate to have a live pianist as part of the musical soundscape (the equally lovely and disgustingly talented Marty Scanlon). It made beginning the composition process a little easier—knowing that I could just focus on writing the little black dots and not have to pre-record everything in the entire score.

The more I delved into The Spirit Play the more I realized that not only were there a million different directions I could go, but there were also going to be a million questions along the way that I would need to answer. It’s like being in a Hitchcock movie, you know, where they tie you up in a rubber bag and throw you in the trunk of a car. It can be exhausting, but once you start forcing yourself to make at least some creative decisions, the right (you hope) pathway starts to open up.

I started writing the music in July. Fast forward to August. With some confidence under my belt and way too many themes, I then put on my Meryl Streep hat and started the arduous task of deciding which tunes would make the final cut and which ones would be tossed. The score should be like this giant tapestry that is woven with themes that will hopefully tie the whole design together. The composing process is challenging but yes, it can be a lot of fun as well. Oftentimes the themes you start out with are not the themes you end up with, and inevitably the music starts to take on a monstrous life of its own and begins telling you what it wants to be. “Feed me, Seymour!” indeed. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking away in the background…

I like simplicity and having a razor-sharp focus with the music and sound design. I like to let the show breathe. The spoken word is king…the language is the main melody. I feel that my job is to stay out of the way, add subtle emphasis to specific moments, and help provide a sort of musical continuity to everything. Every now and then you get some glorious moments where the music can just soar (The Graveyard sequence), but overall it’s about trying to keep it simple yet effective. The design arc of The Spirit Play is an interesting one. The first act has a lot of music and is very lyrical and romantic in the design of the soundscape. Act 2 loses most of the music and instead opts for copious amounts of silence and, when all hell breaks loose, a cacophony of unsettling sound effects and drone-type clusters. Act 2 is more abstract, less lyrical, and more unexpected. I love working with silence. Inside the silence is a sort of infinite possibility. When you have cracking good actors and high stakes, you often don’t need anything in the background. 

Since all the elements don’t come together till the end and you’re sort of working in a vacuum, you have to take a blind leap of faith and hope that what you’re creating will be in creative sync with the show. You don’t want to find out you’ve put beef in the trifle. The real magic and inspiration comes during tech. Seeing the costumes, the lighting, the set, and the actors all together as one whole is hugely important and will let you know immediately what’s working and what isn’t. The creative decisions made during tech with the sound and music are infinitely more beneficial because I’m responding, viscerally, as an audience member. It’s totally a gut-reaction—you know immediately it’s THIS and not this. You learn everything you need to know and then go home and feverishly write, write, and rewrite until 6am and then get ready for the next night to do it all over again.

Yes, it always feels like a losing battle when you’re racing against the evils of the clock. In the end, though, it’s a snapshot—a singular moment in time. I look back and see how bits from every part of my life somehow permeate the music and the design. When you live and breathe something for so long, it’s hard not to keep your personal life from seeping into the work itself. You see the highs, the lows, the disappointments, the happy accidents, and every once in a while the ‘lightning in a bottle’ moments. The Spirit Play has ‘em all. I couldn’t be prouder of the group of people who worked on this show.

When it’s over, there’s always a palpable sense of relief and renewed optimism for the blank slate ahead. And dare I say, what better company of people to have by my side than The Strange Tree Group! I can’t believe I get to make music with these gifted souls. It certainly makes my job of delving into this delicious darkness a hell of a lot easier!