Musicals
Mean Girls the Musical
Context
The Team
L-Acoustics ‘Can Sit’ With the Mean Girls Musical
The Broadway musical production of Mean Girls is the stage adaptation of Tina Fey’s 2004 film of the same name. Receiving a remarkable 12 nominations for the 72nd Annual Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Mean Girls, is full of pop culture, catchy songs, and colorful scenes. Following its premiere at National Theatre in Washington D.C., the production officially opened in April 2018, at the August Wilson Theatre on 52nd Street in New York City.
The Challenge
The August Wilson Theatre was a “beautiful but challenging room,” according to Sound Designer Brian Ronan. When transferring the production from D.C. to Broadway, the show’s set took up the most available space on the proscenium sides. With a relatively low ceiling, Ronan and his associate, Cody Spencer, had to be creative with the use of arrays. Due to audience sightlines and the lighting designer’s need to have appropriate angles, the arrays had to stay out of the picture.
The Solution
Wanting to stay in the L-Acoustics family to maintain the sonic signature, Ronan and Spencer turned to Kiva II. Its size, weight, and rigging allowed them to stay with the array technology. By hanging multiple short arrays, they could still tap into the power of array shaping, with the last results accurately predicted in Soundvision. Masque Sound supplied all audio gear, and Ronan and his team specified and installed several LA8-powered distributed arrays across the theatre’s proscenium arch. They supplemented twin arrays of 12 Kara each with three additional hangs of V-DOSC to reinforce the sound designer’s unique mix of vocals, band, and other sonic elements.
System pictures
The Result
The overall result was a success. According to Brian Ronan, “I’ve heard compliments on the sound from many people, but the most important ones are from the person who wrote the show, the person who orchestrated the show, and the person who directs the show, and they’ve all been very vocal and supportive.”
Project photo
I go to L-Acoustics because I feel that their systems allow human beings to still sound like human beings, only louder. The crossover technology compliments a show’s vocals in a way that I don’t find on most other brands and their intelligibility is second to none.
Brian Ronan
Sound Designer
Tech Brief
- Two arrays of 12 Kara each to provide the band system
- 12x dV-DOSC hung at the center, plus two additional hangs to cover the mezzanine
- Twin seven box Kiva II arrays on either side of the proscenium to complete the vocal system
- SB18 subwoofers
- LA8
