spies are forever
suny new paltz | 2025 | sound design
director: barclay travis | music director: katie gudzik | dramaturg: aditri khadilkar
scenic: barclay travis, kiersten delorey | costumes: dani rosenfeld | lighting: theo wright | sound: oz fen wang | mixer: phoebe albro
book: corey lubowich, joey richter & brian rosenthal | music & lyrics: clark baxtresser & pierce siebers
photos by alyssa trokie
about the show
following agent curt mega in his attempts to thwart a cold war-era revival of the nazi regime, spies are forever was a labor of love. it was cast, staged, and teched in only 3 weeks and presented many challenges because of this short time frame.
it's a show that straddles a very fine line in regards to tone, and the sound was designed to lift up and reinforce the sincere message this production strived send about queerness, identity, safety and joy while still helping center the show as a satirical comedy.
the show was fully miced, with 8 rf mics for actors and the on-stage keyboard routed through dante.
finding sound cues was a fun challenge in looking for era accurate sound cues for some aspects of the show, but needing to contrast that with the described advanced technology that the special agents in the show used. many of the sound cues were also linked to lighting through osc, and fired by the mixer.
sound samples
a kgb soldier is shot, but still manages to hit a button to set off an alarm. this cue also fired a lighting cue with osc.
after a short conversation, a three minute timer is set on the bombs being places by agents curt mega and owen carvour.
at the end of the song spy again [the opening number] bombs that had been set earlier in the scene start to go off. this cue also fired a lighting cue with osc.
while being shown new gadgets in a lab, agent curt mega is caught by a lie detector. this cue also fired a lighting cue with osc.