I am a graduate of Technical Theatre at the University of Salford. I have a recent history involving dance and performing, however, from the age of 13 my eyes turned toward the technical side. I started self-taught and I have had many opportunities to develop my skills over the years. I have been developing my skills within many technical theatre departments specialising in sound design and stage management. I have worked mainly as a sound design/ technician and a stage manager in local theatre productions. I am a member of the Association of Sound Designers and currently work freelance on various projects across the North-West.
Acting as a technical assistant focusing on sound and set design, I took part in all my high-school productions. Here I assisted in making the sets and became lead sound technician on most shows/ live concerts as well as assisting on lights and props if needed. I studied Music at GCSE level and continued into college studying Level 3 Music Technology, achieving a double distinction. I continued my journey studying Technical Theatre at Salford University, where I graduated with a First Class BA Degree.
2013 onwards, both inside and outside of education, (at venues such as the E Rooms, Frog and Bucket Comedy Club and TriBeCa), I have taken part in sound design for live concerts/ shows and occasionally taking a lighting design role. I have had to learn and develop skills including stage set up, channel routing, Loudspeaker set up, use of monitors as well as various placement designs for the different events.
I have assisted with many concerts and even taught GCSE Drama students the role of a live sound technician and how to use the mixing console whilst I attended college. Volunteering for live events has developed my skill set in terms of rigging, fault finding and improvisation in term of live sound mixing and sound FX
I recently had the opportunity to shadow the operations manager at the Warehouse Project 2021. Here I experienced running an event from inside the event management team, handling dilemmas as they were presented and working alongside the team to ensure the event ran smoothly.
I have developed and experimented with many recording techniques from close to ambient mic'ing, stereo and mono recordings and much more. I have recorded using various microphones ranging from AKG microphones to Rode. I mainly used the AKG D40 for kick drums, Rode NT-1 for vocals and AKG C1000 for acoustic instruments such as guitar/ Piano to list a few examples. I recorded them all onto Logic Pro X. Logic Pro X is my main choice of DAW software when it comes to mixing and mastering projects. I have 8 years of experience learning and developing my skills on the software and still use it to this day for majority of my projects. I have also had experience creating Foley for video using various objects such as spaghetti to replicate a trudging sound; as well as creating synths using household items such as a Kettle to form a drum beat.
My Current Projects include:
Freelance employment as a venue technician at The Atkinson Theatre, Southport
Casual Theatre Technician at the Lowry Theatre. I have worked on productions including, but not limited to "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe," "Gary Barlow: A Different Stage" and the Birmingham Royal Ballet expanding my skill set across all departments.
Assistant Stage Manager for "The Possibility of Colour" by Pete Carruthers
Tech Swing for the "Robin Hood" Pantomime at Oldham Coliseum
Technical Stage Manager for "The Mad Hatter's Circus" by TAG (Talent Artistic Group) touring Haven sites through August and October
I joined Rachel Dean Dance for their production of "Thumbelina" as Stage Manager
I joined Four Hands Dance company during their tour of "It's OK!" to be their technician/ driver for their Brighton stop on tour
19/3/22 I joined Walk the Plank Theatre company during their Event 0 of "Green Space Dark Skies" which explores the beauty of natures landscapes using new technology to journey from dawn to dusk. I am joining the team again on their next event in April.
Congleton High school required PAT testing on their Theatre lights and working with Dave D Events we successfully cleaned, PAT tested and re focused the main hall and drama studio.
Women Voice Awards 2022 hosted at Salford University. I joined the technical team as sound engineer for the duration of the award ceremony, which included a lectern microphone, four hand held microphones as well as presentation, video and music.
Casual technician at The Frog and Bucket Comedy Club. Here I controlled the lights, sound and special FX when needed for in house and touring comedy gigs.
Women in Comedy festival, which took place 1st-10th October 2021. Here I was the solo Saturday technician at TriBeCa, Manchester. Here I was able to run the show for a great festival and some amazing people such as Lisa Moore (Lisa Moore Comedy) and Isabelle Farah (Iresponsabelle).
Bow and Arrow, City Group Entertainment. I joined the City Group Entertainment, local Drama group located in Liverpool for their current production of Bow and Arrow (Levy, B. 2020). Rehearsals are currently online for this production and for further productions until circumstances relating to Covid-19 change.
Technology in Performance. This was a University module where, in groups, we were tasked with programming a performance of our design. I specialised in sound for this assignment, for full portfolio please click here.
Doctor Faustus (Marlowe, C. 1592). My design idea for a production of Doctor Faustus (Marlowe, C. 1592). This was a universisty project, for full portfolio click here .
Sound design for "Once: A New Musical" for an advanced design module at University. To see full portfolio click here
T@pp Fest: Performance Project. This was a University module where we looked at "Attempts on her life" (Crimp, M. 1966). For full portfolio click here.
My style varies from project to project. I enjoy focusing on realism and try not to over-elaborate a scene when it really is not necessary but still try to fully immerse the audience. For example, a simple living room would not need a million lights and a sound score to go along with it. However, it could have a simple lighting from what you would expect to see coming from a light bulb or window and ambient noises such as birds, talking in distance and possibly a radio with low volume to not distract from the scene, which would also make use of a spot FX speaker. However, for each project I will research and find inspiration mainly in the history of the project and identify key themes before starting to design. I then split the project into 3 sections, pre-show, first half and second half. Based on the key themes identified for a chosen project I will apply the knowledge when choosing my sound design. I believe history and research to be very important to help make decisions throughout the project.
