PHOTOS BY MICHAL DANIEL
Baakari Wilder, Jimmy Tate, Savion Glover and Vincent Bingham in a scene from the four-time Tony Award-
winning musical Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk.
Schreier says. "The first is putting mikes
on people and making it sound beautiful.
The second is where you have 400 or so
sound cues in an hour-and-a-half play."
For the musical Floyd Collins, the 1925
true story of a spelunker trapped for two
weeks in a Kentucky cave, Schreier had his
work cut out for him. He had to find ways
to produce different kinds of reverberations
as the title character, Collins, -goes from cave
to cave, deeper and deeper. Schreier devel-
oped a creative mix by working in a studio
with computers and sound-generating
equipment.
While very familiar in films, "sound de-
sign is in its adolescence in the theater,"
says Schreier. "Today, 80 percent of Broad-
way shows are miked — 100 percent of mu-
sicals."
Microphones, as small as pencil erasers,
are placed in performers' clothes, hair or
beards. Though the art is generally recog-
nized by several award-granting groups,
the Tonys do not yet give an award for
sound design.
But no doubt, Bring in 'Da Noise would
have netted him a nomination. In this mu-
sical, the history of tap is told through funk
tap, rap tap and miked tap.
"It brings tap into the 20th century. It
is heavily amplified," Schreier says with a
grin. "The sound of tap is not very loud. You
need to get the sound of tap as loud as [the
music and the singer]."
His technique? "It's a trade secret," he
adds, grinning even more, "involving a wire-
less transmitter and a microphone on each
tap shoe." And he will say no more.
Schreier's other big project in the '95-'96
season was composing incidental music for
The Tempest, which also went to Broadway
under George Wolfe's direction.
Though Schreier may be a pioneer in
sound design, he is trained in music corn-
position. Says Michael Feingold, drama crit-
ic of The Village Voice, "Dan Schreier has a
secret: One day the world will discover he's
actually a composer."
Schreier is the composer of some 21 scores
— incidental music, musical scores and an
opera — outnumbering his 20 stints as
sound designer. Upcoming projects for the
1997 season are a Broadway revival or
chamber opera, either as sound designer or
composer, of a major play on Jewish themes.
For now, a prestigious Drama Desk
award under one arm, a '95 Audelco Award
and a '90 Obie Award under the other,
Schreier's future looks very sound. ❑
Dan Schreier's "trade secret" for creating lead performer Savion Glover's sound involves a
wireless transmitter and a microphone on each tap shoe.
Tapping To A Different Beat
ring in Da Noise, Bring in 'Da .Funk is a heckuva mu-
sical experience. It fuses several trends in musical the-
ater and popular art: the story's fueled by dance and
song, the rap tradition and Dan Schreier's sound de-
sign, which hauls them all together in a synergistic new
form.
Director George C. Wolfe (Tony, Best Director) and his
collaborator/choreographer/performer Savion Glover (Tony,
Best Choreography), decided to use the American popular
art form of tap-dancing to carry an entire musical. That they
succeed on the level of visual and visceral sensation is
clear.
Glover was a sensation when he made his Broadway de-
but at age 12 as The Tap Dance Kid. Now, at 22, he is a great,
loose-limbed funk tapper. There was no precedent for funk
tap because Glover invented it (Gregory Hines can be seen
as one of its progenitors). Funk tap is bigger, more muscu-
lar than the tap we know; it is pitched even farther down
into the floor; it is wincingly tough --- like Gene Kelly on
B
,
steroids.
Keeping it afloat with the funk music — some rap and
some jazz/rock, expressively sung by Tony winner Ann
Duquesnay and Jeffrey Wright — Schreier's sound design
is electrifying. Taps become searing slaps, beefy slams are
combined with other percussive elements, as in the "Shift-
ing Sounds" number. The drumming is sensational.
Where the show fails is in distorting facts — for example,
ignoring the role of the Irish jig dance as a major element in
the beginnings of tap and neglecting the African-Ameri-
can female tap artists' contribution to tap; not one of the
dancers --- all good, a few fine — is a woman.
Nevertheless, Wolfe and Glover have produced an excit-
ing visual and aural feast.
C-0'
e Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk is performed
at the Ambassador Theatre 8 p.m. Tuesdays through
Saturdays, 2 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays, and 3
p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $20-$70. 219 W. 49th Street,
New York City. Call Telecharge at (212) 239-6200.