Woolf and the Wondershow’s ‘Future Theater’ Experience
The creative team, who had been developing the extremely innovative theatrical experience over six years, opened CAGES to both audience and critical acclaim, running for only six months before the Covid shutdown. The show has now reopened to the delight of theater and music aficionados in downtown Los Angeles. New audiences are finally getting to experience the artistic and technical magic of CAGES, which is presented in L-ISA immersive audio from L-Acoustics.
Part rock opera, part German Expressionist cinema dressed like a McQueen runway, this innovative story-based musical production presented by Woolf and the Wondershow is a uniquely surreal two-hour live experience. It begins the moment audience members are ushered through the unmarked door of an anonymous, reconfigured former Amazon warehouse in the Arts District of Downtown LA. Once inside, visitors first discover CHEMIST, a fully operational speakeasy focused on emotional mixology. The venue is open prior to the show and engulfs guests into the world of CAGES through detailed set design and projection mapping, with landmarks and clues placed around the space that foreshadow the theatrical experience about to begin.
The show itself, described by the producers as “future theater,” serves up a visual feast of animation, illusions, dancers, and real and virtual actors. These visuals are paired with a 360° soundtrack of live and recorded music, narration, and sound effects delivered through an immersive 19.1 L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound technology configuration. CAGES morphs together projection, digital imagery, immersive sound along with live and virtual performances into a theatrical experience unlike any other.
Creating and Defining Future Theater
In a Q&A with Alternative Press, the show’s creators—Benjamin Romans and CJ Baran—explained what future theater means to them. “Future theater is the next generation of live theater where the lines between what’s CGI and what’s reality blur. In our instance, that included combining film, multidimensional sets, concert, technology, modern music production, and a new approach to an experiential space to tell the story to a whole new audience of theatergoers. CAGES particularly is a musical for people that… probably don’t like musicals… and that’s the point.”
The stage was first set for CAGES several years ago when Romans and Baran began working together as producers and songwriters for a multitude of pop artists. This songwriting partnership ultimately led to the creation of unique material that would become the foundation of CAGES. The story is set in Anhedonia, a dystopian world where emotions are forbidden, and everyone’s hearts are locked in cages. After meeting Madeline, his muse, Woolf—played by Baran—is determined to write a symphony powerful enough to set everyone’s hearts free.
“We love the shows on Broadway, but there’s such a huge opportunity to do modern music,” says Romans. “And when you do modern music with songs, that means production.” Romans and Baran had labored together over the songs in their respective home studios, layering soft synths, vintage analog synths, piano, Mellotron, and a 50-piece orchestra, recorded remotely via Skype in Prague. Romans is responsible for the arrangements and the sound design. David Richardson handled the creative direction for this production.
As the character of Woolf, Baran’s performance requires him to precisely hit his marks in order to work with not only the projected props and effects but projected fellow performers. As he told the LA Times, “We checked the sight lines from every single seat to make sure it would work for everyone. If I’m one inch off, oh my God, the whole show is ruined, the whole illusion is gone.”
Changing Direction
After all their hard work getting the music just right, the creators were disappointed when the sound system they had initially installed at the warehouse failed to do their production justice. “We were ready to go with our stereo tracks and we demanded that everything be as sonically driven as it was in the studio. And it wasn’t there,” says Romans, who performs live music throughout the show. “We got really frustrated because our visuals were on point. It’s a powerfully visual show and very immersive—not in a traditional sense, but there’s a sense of escapism.”
Enter L-Acoustics. “We were working with Mike Sassano, who was helping us out with some front-of-house details,” Baran recalls. “He was really impressed with our visuals but agreed that the audio just wasn’t on the same level, so he said, ‘You need to get in touch with L-Acoustics. They have an immersive technology called L-ISA that will be perfect.’” Romans and Baran had not initially considered anything other than a stereo sound system. “But we always said that one thing we were after was making the theater sound like the records that we make and the records that we love; always cutting-edge, sonically, whether it’s hip-hop, alternative, or modern jazz,” says Romans.
The pair reached out to the Westlake Village-based US headquarters of L-Acoustics and were put in touch with L-ISA Labs Applications Engineer Carlos Mosquera, a sonic wizard, who invited them into the manufacturer’s L-ISA studio for a demo of what 360° L-Acoustics technology could potentially bring to CAGES. “It was very frustrating to consider that we might have to take out our entire PA and start over,” Romans shares. “But I got emotional over the sonics the first time I heard the L-ISA technology. I was misty-eyed, going from where it was and how frustrating it was, to then hearing the music the way we wanted to hear it. There was so much clarity; everything was breathing. It was a game-changer, and we knew that Mike was absolutely right—L-Acoustics loudspeakers with L-ISA was the solution we desperately needed.”
Configuring the Speakers
Once the decision had been made official, Woolf and the Wondershow worked closely with the L-Acoustics US team in designing the ideal loudspeaker configuration for its performance space. Camarillo-based Rat Sound was brought in to integrate the new audio setup for CAGES. Delivering an immersive 3D environment that puts the audience into the same space as the performers, the ultra-high definition 19.1 configuration now includes five arrays each comprising one ARCS Focus and one ARCS Wide flown across the stage proscenium, plus nine coaxial X8 surrounds distributed along the side and rear walls. Five more X8 overhead support the soundtrack’s height elements, while four flown SB18 subwoofers provide the low-end impact that the show’s creators had previously been unable to achieve.
The power and clarity of the L-Acoustics loudspeaker setup also helped deliver the music with the production quality that the pair had always envisioned for their show. “Dynamically, there are parts of this show that are exceptionally quiet, where it goes down to just a vocal and a real piano. Then there are parts with an 808 drum machine, every analog synth you can imagine, and the orchestra, all at once,” says Romans. “As much as we want it sonically rich, we also want you to feel it in your chest.”
Posted signs at the venue warn the audience that the show can get loud. But there is no need for the ear protection that’s offered. “That’s the thing about L-Acoustics,” says Baran. “There’s no harshness. It can feel so loud and powerful, but your ears don’t ring when you leave, which is such a testament to their loudspeakers. Everything also feels so incredibly clear, natural, and full—and yet so intensely and breathtakingly intimate. When combined with what’s going on visually, even the most experienced theater patrons are absolutely taken aback by how immersive and impactful this production is. And that wouldn’t have been the case without L-ISA. It’s everything we had heard in our heads, and more.”
Just as the wildly unique CAGES has gone through a lot of evolutions through its development, so has the idea of what is theater itself, as Romans told the LA Times, “The way theater looks, and sounds has been evolving since it first began, so it’s like, why can’t it evolve in this direction? It’s kind of an open lane for us because there’s nothing else like this out there.”
For further details on CAGES: www.cagesdtla.com. L-Acoustics, renowned for developing innovative sound systems and technologies, shared this content with PLSN. Learn more about L-Acoustics at www.l-acoustics.com.
