Each play has it's individual sound and music challenges due to subject matter, setting, language etc. As a sound designer and composer, the first things I ask myself are: what sound specs are already the script? What tone should I create or support? How long are the transitions? What instruments or sound palette should be collected/made and used? Pretty straight forward stuff, and honestly, not the most exciting part of the process, but necessary to move forward with the fun

The Pillowman opens this Friday at the Exit Theatre in San Francisco under the beautiful direction of Ariel Craft of The Breadbox Theatre Company. This 2004 Olivier and Tony Award winning play by Martin McDonagh presents some thoughtful and disturbing themes through its use of spellbinding storytelling reminiscent of The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson. Both horrific and fantastical in nature, it is a pensive study of the inner struggle between a man, his ethics, a