To hear Gareth Owen tell it, he essentially stumbled his way into one of the most coveted jobs on the West End. The Olivier and Tony Award-winning sound designer was hustling as a rock-and-roll soundman, mixing acts like The Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys and working at festivals such as Glastonbury and Reading. Then one day, a friend who had been invited to mix Deep Purple asked Owen if he’d cover for the former’s day job. Owen—a self-taught sound engineer—said yes. And just like that, he was the head of sound at the West End musical ‘Blues Brothers’.  

Two decades later, Owen is one of the most sought-after sound designers in musical theatre, a perennial fixture on Broadway and the West End. His portfolio includes some of the world’s most spectacular musicals—Disney’s ‘Mermaid’, ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame’, ‘Sister Act’ and ‘Hairspray’, to name just a few. He’s also a pioneer in the field of immersive theatre sound, constantly innovating with technology and technique. Which explains why he was the perfect pick to helm the boards for Feroz Abbas Khan’s ‘The Great Indian Musical: Civilization to Nation’, a 90-minute celebration of Indian dance, drama, music and art that will be the inaugural performance at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre’s 2,000-seater Grand Theatre.

Speaking from his studio in Amsterdam, Owen discusses the complexities of musical theatre and what to expect from the upcoming show. Edited excerpts: 

Designing sound for a Broadway or West End musical is a complex job. Could you give us a brief overview of what goes into making musical theatre ‘work’ on a sonic level? 

The easiest way to describe it is that I have the overall responsibility for everything everyone hears. So, I’m responsible not just for what the audience hears, but also what the cast hears on stage, what the chorus and orchestra sings, even what the stage managers backstage hear and the sound that comes out of the speakers in the dressing room. Literally everything anyone hears is my responsibility.

In its most basic format, that’s putting a microphone on someone and making sure they can be heard. Then there are additional degrees of complexity, but sound design’s golden rule is to make sure that you can hear all the words. That, in itself, is a job.

But then you have the orchestra, which can sometimes be 60-70 people. All of which must be balanced and mixed, and made to sound good. Then you’ve got sound effects. Some shows have hugely complicated sound effects. Then there’s backing tracks, we use a lot of tracks to enhance things. Sometimes, towards the end of songs, the cast is so out of breath after bouncing that they can’t sing anymore. So, there are all sorts of tricks to enhance those voices.

That’s the practical stuff. Then there’s all the creative stuff: making stuff sound good, mixing in surround sound, what type of reverberation to use, auto-tune, equalisation, compression, dynamics. And there’s all the technical side of it, getting dozens and dozens of computers to talk to each other and do the right thing and keep working night in and night out.

I know I’m biased but I honestly do think it’s the most difficult job in theatre. There are so many people with so many opinions who have a vested interest in how things sound, and I think you really can tell how hard it is by how few people are actually doing it.

What’s one aspect of the job that surprises people when they learn about it? 

I think the thing that surprises even the people who work on the shows is how the microphones are mixed. Because you have a sound operator at the mixing desk, and they are literally turning every single microphone on and off on a line-by-line basis. Which means if you and I have a conversation following a script, and someone is mixing it, then they’re turning mics on and off for each line. That’s the bit where even the directors and cast will come and sit by the mixing desk and be like “I had no idea you guys were doing this.” 

One of the other things we do a lot, especially on the more complicated shows, we do the synchronisation [for] the different departments. The orchestra will be playing along to a metronome in their ears, and that will be linked to a timecode, and that timecode is streamed to all the different departments so that lighting and video and effects can all happen at the same time.

So, for example, in Back to the Future, as the car turns—there’s a screeching sound effect, the video will turn, the car will turn, the lights will focus and change colour, the orchestra will play a certain section. As the car starts moving, the lights start to move. If all that doesn’t go to plan, then it’s a complete car crash. It’s our job to make sure it all works. 

You’ve worked on some of the most iconic productions in musical theatre— ‘Memphis’, ‘MJ The Musical’, the Bochum production of ‘Starlight Express’. What made you want to add ‘Civilization to Nation’ to that list? 

Primarily it was Mr Khan’s enthusiasm. He was so excited about it, and had such grand and wonderful ideas, his enthusiasm was just so contagious. I just felt myself completely swept away with it, but I still wasn’t completely sure about it. And then I travelled to India, visited The [Grand] Theatre and met all the people, and they were all so cool and so excited. I just really wanted to work with these people and do this show.

It’s also something different from the routine of West End and Broadway. I’m used to working with people at the top of their game in the West End or in Hollywood. But now you’ve got these Bollywood people and I don’t know their world. I don’t know who’s famous here; who the best directors or writers or costume designers are. There’s this whole world in India that I just don’t know anything about and I’m just hugely excited to be invited to be a part of that.

You’ve got a bit of a reputation as someone who likes to go into theatres, rip everything out and start from scratch. Is that something you contemplated doing here as well? 

Yes, normally I go into a theatre and do everything myself. I will install the whole lot—speakers, mixing desk, everything. Sometimes there’s equipment in the theatre that I use, but it’s extremely rare that I will go into a theatre and use the entire sound system. 

But with ‘Civilization to Nation’, the new system that’s being installed in the theatre is just superb. I think we are going to use pretty much all of it, exactly as it’s been installed. Yes, we’re going to add a few bits and pieces, there’s a few special things we need to add for ‘Civilization to Nation’.  But we’ll be using the bulk of the sound in the theatre.

I would say that the sound technology in this theatre is on par with the best theatres I’ve ever been to in the world. It’s not just that it’s the best sound equipment money can buy, it’s also been extremely well installed by people who clearly know what they’re doing, and it’s being run and managed by people who really care and really, really want it to work and succeed. That combination is extremely rare. I’m hard pushed, honestly, to think of comparisons. The National Theatre of Helsinki is like that, the London National Theatre is like that. I can’t think of any venue in New York that’s of the same standard as this venue in Mumbai. 

‘Civilization To Nation’ is a challenging show, with over 350 plus performers and a live orchestra. What went into putting it together? And what can the attendees expect in terms of a sonic experience? 

I think viewers should expect a huge dynamic range—from moments so quiet that you can actually hear a pin drop on stage, to absolutely floor-shaking, earth-moving moments of sonic power. We are designing the show using almost a completely spherical sound—so we have sound coming from front, back, sides and overhead. We even have subwoofers built into the floor to shake your trousers. I can honestly say there isn’t a show on Broadway that is as immersive as this. 

Another unique thing is the integration between recorded music and live music. We have a huge live orchestra as well as lots of live instruments and singers on stage. This is seamlessly interwoven with complicated electronic music recordings which will create a musical landscape quite different to anything we’ve worked on before. I think the show [‘Civilization to Nation’] has the possibilities to make full use of this, and the theatre has the technology to do it. So, we would be remiss if we didn’t give the audience a sonic experience unlike anything they’ve heard before.
 
Feroz Abbas Khan’s ‘The Great Indian Musical: Civilization to Nation’ will premiere at The Grand Theatre, Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, in Mumbai from April 3 to 23, 2023.