An Aural Glimpse Into the World of VIRAL with

Eli Van Sickel, Sound Designer ...

 

I first learned about the play VIRAL while David Ian Lee and I

were in grad school together.

 

He said that he was friends with a playwright I’d like so he passed

the script along to me. I was immediately taken with the play, not

just because of the subject matter, but also the quality of the

writing. With subjects that include fetish, suicide, depression,

abuse, and the Internet, it would be very easy for a writer to make

the play about all that stuff. Instead, Mac tells us a story about the

people dealing with that stuff, allowing us to connect with the

characters on a deeper level. Don’t let the buzz words fool you; this

play is about outsiders, people who feel isolated, alone, and different.

And we meet these people in a very humanizing way.

 

I loved the play so much that I actually had plans to direct it myself when I was at ISU. Unfortunately, my work load was such that it wasn’t feasible. That’s why I was so happy to hear that David was staging it this semester and I’ve been honored and thrilled to work on the play as the sound designer.

 

This production is being staged in a very small performance space, which means that the audience and the actors will be sharing close quarters. And, honestly, that’s an ideal setup for this play. We’re coming at you tight, hard, fast and the sound design reflects that. The play takes place NOW, with most of the characters being college-aged. They live in a world that is fueled by the Internet, where people forge their identities on social media, where video footage of anything can be found if you know where to look. Despite the characters’ dependence on the Internet for practically everything, these are still real human beings with real human problems.

 

With such a dichotomy at play, I am faced with the question of “What does this world sound like?”

 

In the file below are some examples of music, some of which will be in the finished production and some of which have served as inspiration for me as I work on the show. It’s a non-stop, 16 minute long track that mixes various genres, sounds, and themes. Unfortunately, our web host won't allow us to post it for download, but you can give it a listen -- making sure to first silence "Clair de Lune" by turning off the player in the footer -- and get a little more of an aural glimpse into the world of VIRAL and its characters.

 

(And, if you really want a copy of you own, I'm sure you can click on the contact button and make that request. We're good like that.)