Sound Crew

    Danny Creelman
    Mrs. Dunsten Hoover
    AP Language
    19th September 2019

I sat in my brothers car, looking at the crumpled piece of paper. It was a list of all of the crews in theater, with basic summaries of what they did for the show and what days they met on. A friend had just given it to me, after she saw me in the gazebo while I was waiting for my brother. She wanted me to join sound crew, because a crew member had just left, and they wanted a freshman in the crew. While I originally was thinking about joining lights crew, I figured that sound could also be fun. 
    The instant I walked into the Sound Booth, I knew that I had made a decision that would change my life. The crew was small, just the chief, the girl who invited me, a boy who was rarely there, and myself. We got along like a group of friends who had known each other for years, not minutes. This group of people helped me a lot through my freshman year. Whether it was about how to open a cue on the soundboard or how a teacher formats her tests, they were there for me. They also introduced me to new a new group of friends, many of whom are now my closest friends. Without them, my freshman year would have been much more difficult. 
However, the crew brought to me more than just new friends. The crew centered around the soundboard, with its many switches, buttons, levers and knobs. This board ran the entire sound system, so it was crucial that everyone in the crew knew how to use it. My crew chief taught me how to cue certain sound effects, how to turn on and off microphones, how to balance the audio levels on a microphone, and more. Besides the actual technology, the crew also taught me patience, tolerance, and how to be heard when it is needed. But most importantly, it taught me how to efficiently operate under stress, and how to work with others who are also very stressed. These new friends and new skills were extremely helpful to me in my first year of highschool. 
    Sound Crew also brought about me a new love for theater. I had done theater at Nagel before I came to Turpin, but I never did anything tech related. Sound allowed me to see a new side of theater I had never experienced, allowing me to appreciate a whole new aspect in musicals and plays. This year I took tech theater, which has allowed me to explore what I love in a class. I don’t know where I am going to take this passion, but I sure know where I got it from.

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