BY LUCIA MAURO
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Many photographers carry around cameras all the time to seize a spectrum of visual opportunities. Their constant focus through a lens eventually allows them to see the world in a more cinematic way. Joseph Fosco can be regarded as their sonic counterpart. The Chicago sound designer-composer never leaves home without a tape recorder. Through a sort of aural free-association exercise, he records urban ambient sound–from ambulance sirens and buzzing signals at parking garage exits to drums emanating from a subway tunnel and a street preacher urging hurried pedestrians to repent.
"I’ve noticed that I don’t just hear things differently, I also observe patterns of sound emerging that reveal things about myself," says Fosco, an ensemble member of A Red Orchid Theatre and sound expert whose work has been heard in nearly every local theatre.
This daily exploration of soundscapes and their relation to life could be considered a metaphor for Fosco’s view of theatre as an intensely personal place where the artists provide a malleable setting for audiences to discover meanings that apply to their individual experiences. Sound, for him, is a separate character that mirrors a play’s themes and "propels the action forward."
His most recent projects include The Hypocrites’ Rhinoceros (running through July 7 at the Athenaeum), Collaboraction’s Summer Sketchbook, Light Opera Works’ Gypsy Love, Uncle Broadway at the Royal George, The Vagina Monologues at the Apollo Theatre and The Grey Zone at A Red Orchid. Other theatres Fosco has designed for include Lifeline, Bailiwick, Mary-Arrchie, Porchlight, Irish Rep, Prop Thtr, Piven, Redmoon, Pendulum Theatre, the Theatre of Western Springs and both Seattle Repertory Theatre and Milwaukee’s Marcus Center for the Performing Arts for productions of Forever Plaid.
Fosco designs sound, writes the effects and composes original music for theatre, dance and opera productions, as well as commercial projects–like TV pilots, independent films and Web sites. In addition, he has performed his own experimental sound-based performance pieces and has presented his work for "Stories from the Web" at the Museum of Contemporary Art and National Public Radio’s "This American Life."
His music compositions have been performed at festivals and concerts around the country; he has co-curated performance events at Blue Rider Theater; and he has a long-standing artistic partnership with local playwright David Hauptschein (in 1997, they performed in and co-hosted the successful interactive Coffee with David Hauptschein and Joseph Fosco at Angel Island Theatre).
A native of Oak Forest, Ill., Fosco says that he has always related to the world on a sonic level. "I’m not a visual or spatial person," he points out. "I hear things very acutely. I think I hear things that other people don’t hear."
The audio artist began to play saxophone in high school and went on to receive his bachelor’s degree in music composition from DePaul University in 1981 and his masters in music composition, with an emphasis on "live electronic pieces," from the University of Miami in 1985. Attracted to the possibilities of electronic equipment, Fosco began composing for these computer-based instruments. In grad school, one of Fosco’s instructors specialized in building equipment–a skill he soon mastered.
"I was interested in merging live performance with electronic music," Fosco explains. "But I didn’t want audiences to just listen to a recording on stage. I thought I could build things to show my connection to the instrument on stage. I then started working with other musicians on developing performance pieces that combined a story or text with sound."
He went so far as to tell a story on stage–called "narratives with sound"–while holding a sound controller with cables wired underneath his clothing. As he spoke, he would manipulate sound. He could alter the re-verb or create new vocal textures by manually running his voice through a signal processor.
"The sound would breathe with the story," describes Fosco. "It would have the same rhythmic feel as the words. And what I said impacted how the sound came out."
He was so intrigued by the "live" aspect of sound that he began to put his technical skills to use in a theatrical setting, soon landing regular sound-design commissions from the Theatre of Western Springs beginning in 1994. Via word-of-mouth and high recommendations, Fosco was invited to design sound for more theatres in the city.
In 1995, he met Hauptschein at an event at N.A.M.E. Gallery and later performed in an open monologue series, True Stories, which the playwright coordinated. Fosco soon found himself shaping the psychologically stirring sound universe for Hauptschein’s two one-act explorations of memory and dreams: Trance and Lucid Dreamers at Live Bait. He also designed sound for Trance when it went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1996 and won the "Fringe First Award."
Fosco fervently believes that sound design is not a fancy term for providing a production with sound effects.
"Sound design is not just about doing 2,000 effect cues," he adamantly states. "It’s more than seven gun shots and three door slams. It must encompass and support the ideas of the play. Within specific sounds, you can create textures that put the audience in a certain mood. For instance, you can make a city sound incredibly menacing or peaceful.
"I aim to bring the script to life and unity to a production. The best sound design happens when it fits into the whole creative scheme–when all the designers, together with the director and actors, reach a unifying vision. You can’t paste on the sound later."
He adds that the sound must fit compellingly into the corresponding theatre space. For example, the sound in Rhinoceros is ideally suited to the Athenaeum Upstairs Studio and, to project the absurdist nature of Ionesco’s script, Fosco says he did not hide the fact that the sound of the titular accumulating beasts is recorded. On the flip side, he did not seek out literal resources.
"The sound [in Rhinoceros] can go from comic to scary," says Fosco, "It’s overblown. But, in the beginning, I was trying to figure out how I would create the rhinoceros sound. I didn’t want to listen to recordings of rhinos running around. What I wound up with was a drum sample created on a keyboard. The processor would create this really big sound, and I would have these different levels of a stampede."
But the designer cites his energized collaboration with Rhinoceros’ director Sean Graney as helping him take the sound design to a subliminal metaphoric level. "I like Sean’s idea that the absurdity doesn’t come from the drama but from real life," Fosco continues. "He wanted this French accordion music as an interlude between each act. The accordion music continues to play and has nothing to do with the action on stage. But everyone ignores it–mirroring the play’s theme of the dangers of apathy."
Fosco often sonically enhances a key image or idea from the script. For Pendulum Theatre’s The Quick Change Room, a contemporary musical-farce addressing capitalism’s effect on Russia through the eyes of a formerly state-run theatre company, the designer recreated the rhythms of a runaway train to suggest the country’s socioeconomic conditions spinning wildly out of control. He then added another pungently underlying motif:
"I worked with a deliberately out-of-tune techno-pop sound to reflect the distortion of capitalism," he says. "I wanted to give the impression of Russian rock groups who try to emulate American music, but don’t quite get it right."
For A Red Orchid’s staging of the Jacobean tragedy, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore–featuring a horrifying scene of a human heart being ripped out–Fosco used a lot of guitar, bass and drum combos to evoke the chronic beating of a heart that gradually intensified.
His most recent sound design for Collaboraction’s Summer Sketchbook was more about establishing a raw feel than creating a precise sonic through-line uniting the series of 10-minute plays.
"The whole idea of Sketchbook was to see work in progress," Fosco notes. "So the company didn’t want the show to sound highly produced or polished. But that doesn’t mean that the sound is done in an amateurish or sloppy way. The rough and raw quality of the sound is shaped in a very exacting way. Sound design is about intention–how does it reflect the director’s artistic vision."
Fosco has had the opportunity to design sound for new shows, which are still undergoing major changes during rehearsal. He was in charge of the sound-system design for Uncle Broadway at the Royal George–a project that combined the traditional sounds of George M. Cohan and more modern-day rap rhythms. He worked closely with his sound rental company of choice, T.C. Furlong, based in Lake Forest. An immense technical undertaking, Fosco was engaged in proper amplification and distributing sound evenly throughout the large mainstage theatre.
He felt like he was truly creating a show from the ground up. Other times, Fosco must handle unexpected emergencies.
He was called in at the last minute to repair sound problems for another musical theatre production for which he did not design the sound. It was the day before the show was scheduled to open, and the director noticed a glitch in the sound’s consistency. So the cast came in and did a run-through as Fosco listened for a possible cause of this uneven, electronic-sounding glitch.
"It turned out to be a bad piece of equipment, which we were able to replace," he explains. "I tried to clean up the system as much as possible without creating massive [static-like] feedback with the actors."
He then emphasizes the other key role of a sound designer: a problem solver in a technical arena, where glitches are bound to happen.
"Often actors and directors get frustrated in tech rehearsal," Fosco acknowledges. "But the reality is that designers are always in tech. We’re always making adjustments and solving problems."
Toggling between creative and technical functions, he aims to "push the limits of what is possible in a live performing space" and make sound more integrated into the playwright’s intention and director’s vision.
Fosco also leaves room for the audience to make the theatre experience uniquely theirs.
"There’s no such thing as a play," states the designer. "We all put it there. We make it what it is; we make it theatre. We give it meaning. In the theatre, we as artists create an experience to allow the audience to give it meaning. It’s all personalized. The audience has to see something in that play that’s very real in their lives. That’s when you walk out of the theatre charged."