Composer & Sound Designer
Seamlessly weaving musical theater and classical composition background into her practice to create intelligent sound design with strong dramaturgy, subtlety, wit and emotional drive. Recent credits include Pickle (Soho Theatre, The Park Theatre), February Face (Kings Head Theatre, Old Red Lion Theatre) and The Pursuit of Joy (Jermyn Street Theatre).
Specializing in composition and sound design that is:
Music Based
Dramaturgically Driven
Comedic
Vocally Reliant or Featured
Music Based
Composition
I can compose quickly and inventively, integrate elements of sound design into music and variations on featured existing music that has a thematic link to the show.
Working with existing music
I can edit and existing music to support and enhance it's role in the piece, including editing the music so it interferes less with onstage vocals, shifting the source of the music around a space, loop a well known piece subtly so it moves into the audience's periphery quicker as well as rebuild/arrange a piece compositionally so it functions better for the show.
Example:
Without Gd As My Lover
Much of this play takes place in a Catholic Church, with the two main characters wrestling with their relationship with religion and I wanted the sound world to embody what they were wrestling with. With the creative team, we chose a Catholic hymn (that was out of copyright) to evolve along with the characters.
Dramaturgically Driven
As a musical theatre writer, trained on the prestigious Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Programme at Tisch, NYU, storytelling is at the heart of my practice. The first step of any project is understanding the characters, themes and the structure & rhythm of the drama, then an understanding of how the sound and music will support this, and if they will take on a certain perspective. For instance, is the sound design an expression of the main character's emotional journey? Is it purposefully juxtaposing the main character's journey or acting as a force for the main character to push against?
Example:
February Face - Falling in Love
As the main character enters a stable relationship, he notices changes in the way he sees the word. He lists off the new experiences he faces in a pragmatic sentences, yet this moment is extremely different from the rest of the play. I created this falling in love piece to bring more light and joy to this moment, and in a darkly funny play, I felt there was a comedic permission to allow the light to come in here. This also meant that the actor didn't need to bring in this light through his performance, and instead could act against it and be swept up in it.
Comedic
Emily Rose brings her comedy experience to her sound design. Playing a sound in a rehearsal room or a tech for the first time and the room errupting in laughter is the best feeling. Also enjoys sitting with a director with 20 versions of a fart sound to ensure they get funniest one. Searching for joy is awesome.
Pickle was also fun to find comedy in bringing Jewishness to mainstream sounds, thus Back to Black fused with Jewish guilt was created, as well as Jewish Jaws for the circumcision scene.
Example:
Pickle - Jewish Jaws
Pickle was also fun to find comedy in bringing Jewishness to mainstream sounds, thus Back to Black fused with Jewish guilt was created, as well as Jewish Jaws for the circumcision scene.
Vocally based
Voice-over Reliant
I am experienced with creating sound design that is the other character or even an entire ensemble cast. This includes Pickle, in which the supporting role is provided by voice over, and February Face, in which the whole ensemble cast is provided through voice over. I pride myself in the organisation it requires to provide such an intricate sound design that allows for a smooth handover to stage manager and operators. I am also experienced with no budget recording sessions - in offices, in bedrooms, in a disused bank vault.
Editing voices
I have also enjoyed transforming voices to enhance their function - adding reverb, distortion or changing an EQ on a voice can allow it to feel grating, otherworldly, warmer, distance.
Crowds
The party is offstage, the choir are rehearsing in another part of the church, the main characters are outside the pub. Crowd scenes on a small budget is where sound designers swoop in.
Choirs
Whether recording remotely, by layering voices recorded in home set ups, or live recordings co-led with the director, I am experience with my zoom mic and music software at the ready.
Example:
Without Gd As My Lover - Church Choir
The church choir was a diagetic feature in this show, that then shifted into non-diagetic transitions. This was recorded remotely (in fact, trans-Atlantically). I provided teach tracks and simple scores for people to record to and edited the voices together as the tracks came in, allowing each person to record on top of the rest of the choir. This was a smooth and relatively quick process.
Example:
February Face - Opening
This show was hugely based on recorded voices. For this opening I layered the voices in a cacophony to reflect the world inside the main character's head - the world we are entering.