2018

Death of a Salesman

Dir: Sarah Frankom

Venue: Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre

Sound Design

Willy Loman is an ordinary man, he’s the New England man, he’s well-liked. For thirty-six years he’s been on the road, paying his way and one day he’s going to come good. When his son Biff returns home, suddenly things are looking up. Because you reap what you sow, right?

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize For Drama and Tony Award for Best Play, DEATH OF A SALESMAN is considered one of the greatest plays of the 20th century.  Don Warrington (Death in Paradise, King Lear) plays Willy Loman, directed by Royal Exchange Artistic Director Sarah Frankcom (Happy Days, Our Town) in this extraordinary and devastating classic about the downfall of the American Dream.

Creative Team

Director: Sarah Frankom

Sound Designer: Pete Malkin

Set and Costume Designer: Leslie Travers

Lighting Designer: Jack Knowles

Movement Director: Jennifer Jackson

British Theatre Guide - David Chadderton (Full review)

“This is helped by a disturbing sound design from Pete Malkin, that sometimes breaks out into atmospheric music but then sinks far into the background with a simple tone running under whole scenes, as well as some reverberation on the voices returning as echoes from the past to a man who is not in his perfect mind.”

The Unreturning

Dir: Neil Bettles

Frantic Assembly

Venue: Plymouth Theatre Royal / UK Tour / London Stratford East

Sound Design

A British northern coastal town. Three young men are coming home from war. Their stories, set at different times over the last 100 years, are beautifully interwoven in this compelling new play featuring Frantic's celebrated physicality. The cast will include Jared Garfield, Joe Layton, Jonnie Riordan and Kieton Saunders-Browne. 

The Unreturning explores the profound effect that war has on young lives, and asks - what does coming home really mean? What is home? And when experience has shattered you into a million pieces, will home help to put you together again, or treat you as an ugly truth it does not want to confront?  

All four members of the cast for The Unreturning were part of the Ignition programme, now in it's tenth year, before they went on to train professionally and pursue acting careers. 

Creative Team

Director: Neil Bettles

Associate Director: Jess Williams

Written by: Anna Jordan

Sound Designer: Pete Malkin

Stage Designer: Andrzej Goulding

Lighting Designer: Zoe Spurr

Costume Design: Lily Arnold

Reviews Hub (Mark Fisher) (full review)

“With Pete Malkin’s forceful electro-orchestral score and Zoe Spurr’s high-precision lighting, it is fluid, brooding and intense.”

Reviews Hub (James Eves) (full review)

"The sound design by Pete Malkin and lighting design Zoe Spurr add the depth that a show of this calibre needs to put the metaphorical icing on the cake. With subtle orchestras in the background or blisteringly loud dance music accompanying a dim stage with a single, pinpoint spotlight or a completely blinding lighting flash to mask a transition, the lighting and sound not only work well together but with the rest of the production as a whole to create a sense of absolute synchronicity within this piece. In every sense of the word, The Unreturning is a visual and auditory feast. “ 

Pity

Dir: Sam Pritchard

Venue: Royal Court Jerwood downstairs

Sound Design

A person stands in the market square watching the world go by.

What happens next verges on the ridiculous.

There’s ice cream. Sunshine. Shops. Some dogs. A wedding. Bombs. Candles. Blood. Lightning. Sandwiches. Snipers. Looting. Gunshots. Babies. Actors. Azaleas. Famine. Fountains. Statues. Atrocities.

And tanks

This was an utter joy to work on with this wonderful team and I feel very lucky to have worked with Rory's amazing writing work too.

Creative Team

Director: Sam Pritchard

Written by: Rory Mullarkey

Sound Designer: Pete Malkin

Composer: Tom Deering

Stage Designer: Chloe Lamford

Lighting Designer: Anna Watson

Movement Director: Sasha Milavic Davies

Queens of the coal age

Dir: Bryony Shanahan

Venue: Manchester Royal Exchange

Sound Design

Queens of the Coal Age is Written by Maxine Peake and tells the true story of 4 women who occupied Parkside Colliery coal mining pit in 1993 as they faced the closure of their community.

Creative Team

Director: Bryony Shanahan

Written by: Maxine Peake

Sound Designer: Pete Malkin

Stage Designer: Georgia Lowe

Lighting Designer: Elliot Griggs

Movement Director: Jennifer Jackson

Schism

Dir: Lily Mcleish

Venue: Park 90

Sound Design

Following the journey of Harrison and Katherine, Schism is a stunning new play about two people finding each other, and questions at what point does a dream become unrealistic and out of date.

Once again working with a wonderful team of creatives led by the inspiring Lily Mcleish, this was a really interesting play set in the mind of Harrison throughout, so we played with soundscapes that related to his life and reflected his happiness and despair.

Creative Team

Director: Lily Mcleish

Written by: Athena Stevens

Sound Designer: Pete Malkin

Assistant Sound: Joe Dines

Stage Designer: Anna Reid

Lighting Designer: Dan Saggers

Frogman

Curious Directive

Dir: Jack Lowe

Venue: Shoreditch Town Hall

Sound Design

Frogman is a part Virtual Reality, part Live Theatre show that was created by Curious Directive, Directed by Jack Lowe.

The Great Barrier Reef, 1995. Meera is 11. It's her first sleepover. Strawberry Dunkaroos, Sega Mega Drive and coral fragment analysis descends into torch-lit storytelling from sleeping bags. Lights off. In the corner, Meera’s aquarium is beginning to glow. Outside over the reef, the Frogman hovers, looking for traces of a missing child. As police search lights refract through the ocean, the annual coral bloom is due, creating an underwater snowstorm. Time is running out. A coming-of-age, supernatural thriller, this is a ground-breaking, world-first theatre experience, experienced in VR headsets from double Fringe First award-winners, curious directive.

This was the first of two London Venues we toured Frogman to this year, the second in North Finchley. Frogman will continue to tour internationally later this year!

The Encounter - Barbican and European Tour

Complicité

Dir: Simon McBurney

Touring: Barbican Theatre in London, Odeon Théâtre de l'Europe in Paris, DeSingel in Antwerp, Schaubühne in Berlin and Golden Mask Festival in Moscow

Sound Design with Gareth Fry

The Encounter has been and continues to be a huge Sound Design project, after it's Broadway run of at the John Golden Theatre in New York and last year's tour of Australia, New Zealand and America, we bought it back to London and further into Europe.

Creative Team

Director/Performer: Simon Mcburney

Co-Director: Kirsty Housley

Sound by: Gareth Fry with Pete Malkin

Stage Designer: Michael Levine

Lighting Designer: Paul Anderson

Video Designer: Will Duke

Assistant Director: Jemima James

New York Times (Ben Brantley) (full review)

"Mr. McBurney and his ace sound designers, Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin, have created an aural labyrinth of many layers. You’ll be watching Mr. McBurney’s lips moving in sync with what you’re hearing, only to discover that it’s just a recorded voice you’ve been listening to."

Hollywood Reporter (David Rooney) (full review)

"the production's most astonishing artistry is the infinitely layered enveloping world conjured by sound designers Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin. Close your eyes and you might find yourself reaching for bug spray."

Exuent (Nicole Serratore) (full review)

"the show is heavily reliant on binaural sound to create a sonically immersive environment (the incredibly complex sound design by Gareth Fry and Peter Malkin is a great reason to resuscitate the now-defunct Sound Design Tony award). With the headphones, we have no distance from the events because the show is happening inside our heads. With the intimate power of sound, we give over entirely to what we hear, even if we know it is not real. We’ve been told that’s not an actual recording of a buzzing mosquito and when we hear it later as part of the artificial cacophony of jungle sounds we do not stop and question it."

Talkin Broadway (Matthew Murray) (full review)

"the astonishing sound design by Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin, who use a trio of microphones (including a binaural head) to play games with time, space, and thought you probably never thought possible. Echoes repeat and sustain themselves into infinity. Seemingly random noises layer into gorgeous but chilling tapestries outlining entire ecosystems. The British McBurney, simply by angling his head, can conjure an electronic American voice that rings utterly natural. Words transform into memory, which in turn become a wholly different reality, which is itself then subject to McBurney's tiniest whims. And if he wants you to become hot, cold, or despairing, or to escort you to the brink of death, he'll stand in exactly the right place and unleash his utterance in just the right way to ensure you're helpless in his hands. It really is all this precise."

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Broadway

Sonia Friedman Productions

Dir: John Tiffany

Venue: Lyric Theatre Broadway

Associate Sound Design

Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a new play by Jack Thorne. It is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage.

The first part of 2018 was spent in New York working with Gareth and our amazing US Sound team on the Broadway version of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It was an incredible experience in the renovated space of the Lyric Theatre and a chance for us to take the design a step further once again. The Broadway company made us feel very welcome and Gareth's Design was awarded the Tony Award for Best Sound Design in a play following on from 2017 when we were awarded a special Tony for The Encounter.

Creative Team

Director: John Tiffany

Movement Director: Steven Hoggett

Sound Design: Gareth Fry

Associate Sound: Pete Malkin

Composer & Arranger: Imogen Heap

Music Supervisor: Martin Lowe

Stage Designer: Christine Jones

Lighting Designer: Neil Austin

Video Designers: Finn Ross and Ash Woodward

International Associate Director: Des Kennedy

International Associate Movement Director: Neil Bettles