Antelope Party
Texas Tech Theatre, 2024
Director: Dr. Bill Gelber
Stage Manager: Jared W. Hansen
Asst Stage Manager: Samual Kovacs
Set Designer: Justin Radcliffe
Props Designer: Bailey Lewis
Costume Designer: Jared Roberts
Lighting Designer: Will Loconto
Sound Designer: Oliver Loll
Dramaturg: Adam Harris
Visual Dramaturg: Dr. Leslie Gulden
Fight Choreographer, Stage Intimacy: Abby Wolff
Photography: Rachel Shipley
Sound designer for Texas Tech’s production of The Antelope Party.
The Antelope Party is a play set in the early 2010’s exploring themes of mistrust and fascism. The characters are adult fans of the children’s television show My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. As such, their language and tastes are heavily entrenched in the adult fandom of the show (also known as the “brony” fandom). As this small cast of characters get tangled up in the mysterious “antelope party” they grow suspicious of their friends until the party threatens to destroy their tight-nit group.
The sound for this production enhanced the minimal sets by enveloping the audience in subtle ambiance the entire time. In addition to speakers placed above and on all sides of the audience, the stage was home to two practical sound sources: an intercom (which was an EQ’d MM4 mounted in the wall) as well as a period-appropriate speaker our characters use to play music.
This production required manipulating field recordings from professional sound libraries and other parts of the web.
This project has received the KCACTF award for Excellence in Sound Design in 2024.
The Music
The Antelope Party paints the brony movement in a reverent light, and addresses the many elements of the fandom. In order to match this diligence, I dove deep into the world of brony musicians. These artists drifted so far from the MLP property that they indirectly created their own aesthetic; one that wallowed in genres that scream early 2010s (electroswing, dubstep, etc).
The best places to find these tracks are youtube playlists that diligently archive the greatest hits of the brony fandom. One of these playlists is linked below.
This music was played out of a practical speaker: a Bose SoundDock. When played by our characters, they would interact an Ipod Mini that covered a bluetooth adaptor. This interaction sold the illusion of a speaker that the bronies use the enhance their tabletop role-playing pony game.
Sample Highlights
Antelope Stampede
The end of the play calls for the sound of an antelope stampede, to represent the antelope party attacking one of our characters. I decided to take this stage direction literally, and have the sound stampede slowly flood the room as it jumps from speaker to speaker. As antelopes do not have very distinct calls, the voices of other hooved animals were used instead. The entire sound closes off with the sound of duct tape that the victim is bound by after the lights return.
This is a flattened version with very little panning, as all movement was created by dividing up the sound into different parts and playing them out of individual speakers.
This cue was created by sampling different sounds found online. As it uses some hoof sounds from licensed material, it was only used for educational theater. Compiled with logic pro.
Project Documentation
