I was part of another great Public Assembly show this month—our 8th! The monthly theme of the show was “Wrong Turn.” I was involved with two interstitial pieces this time around.

The first piece pictured a heated interaction between two meth addicts that leads down a path of escalating mania and panic. I accompanied them with a live-improvised score performed on an Arp Odyssey synthesizer. Getting in sync with these actors and trying to match their rhythms and dynamics with music, all in realtime, was thrilling and unlike anything I’d done before.

The second piece I was involved was an unsettling monologue by a “mother” with some serious boundary issues. For this piece, I designed a “tape orchestra” to be played by the audience, another endeavor that was very different from anything I’ve done. Prior to the show, I recorded 10 cassette tapes with 10 interacting layers of music and sound design. Then, on the night of the show, I placed tape players with those cassettes in them on seats throughout the theater. The audience was cued when to start the tape players by a red light on the side of the stage. Erica Dasher gave an incredible performance as the mother while eerie, lo-fi layers of sound wafted through the theater.

Public Assembly always manages to get me out of my creative comfort zone in really rewarding ways and it’s such a privilege to have such a talented group of creators to explore with. Check out @thepublicassembly on instagram to catch a show.