Jesus Christ Superstar was performed at Weathervane Playhouse in Newark, Ohio in 2014. Director Adam Karsten brought in talent from all over Ohio, as well as the surrounding states. The show was produced on the timeline of a summer stock, with only one week of rehearsal before tech.

With 30 actors, 29 microphones, and a six-piece band, the Yamaha LS9 the theatre owned was not large enough to accommodate this show. I used a Yamaha MG166c for the band, and put these channels on a stereo out from the small board into two channels of the LS9. This allowed me to have easy control of the band while being able to give every actor a microphone for their scenes.

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I was also given the chance to design the preshow environment. Karsten wanted something that depicted the darkness and confusion of the period of time before Jesus' birth. I used breathing, both normal paced and stretched, to instill the element of human life. I inserted some pulsing rumbles into the bottom frequencies of the track to keep it from becoming simply background. Finally, I created vocal tracks of whispering to make things a bit darker. The final effect brought across the desolation that Karsten had asked for, and set the tone for the Aramaic whispers and growling that the cast would bring into the show itself.

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Director: Adam Karsten
Scenic Design: Jeremy Hollis
Lighting Design: Jennifer Sansfacon
Costume Design: Cora Delbridge
Stage Manager: Michael Minite
​Assistant Sound Design: Ariel Dickerson