The Woodlands Arts Council funded our project to improve our audio playback/collection for theatrical production. The purchase of equipment allows our students to gain experience operating more up-to-date equipment and improves the support for our actors onstage. This allows greatly improves the audience experience for our theatrical productions and our musical.
A specific skill that our students can leave with that they can apply outside of the theatre is editing and manipulating sound files. Prior to this project being funded we were unable to offer this experience without using web-based programs that severely limited the options available to our technical students. Our students now have access to technology that allows them to edit audio using software that they can then access on their own devices for free. We have a student who took Technical Theatre their Freshman year and returned for Junior year. Using the newly acquired laptops this student learned how to edit sound for multiple productions and used the same hardware to playback the sounds. This equipment has been used in every production since its acquisition and will continue to be a part of all of our shows.