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The Wolves
Director: Caitlyn Herzlinger
Scenic: Claire Brenia
Costumes: Rebecca Rodgers
Lighting: Tristan King
Southern Miss Theatre
Design Statement
The Wolves is about a girls’ soccer team as they grow through different life experiences both on and off the field. The show explores themes of anxiety, identity, and loss in a realistic and enclosed setting. The sound design is meant to evoke feelings of anxiety and claustrophobia, reflecting the emotions of the characters. In exploring the theme of identity, the music selections are based on the actors’ individual interpretations of their characters and what they would listen to in and out of practice.
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#00’s Breakdown
Background: In this scene, the goalie has a breakdown on the field. Set a week after one of her friends and teammates dies in car accident, the socially anxious and high achieving goalie tries to achieve some sense of control through different warm-ups and exercises before breaking down screaming and sobbing.
Purpose: to evoke a sense of anxiety that matches what #00 is experiencing on the field and in her head
Tones were generated specifically to cause discomfort and anxiety. The heartbeat sound was made with a soccer ball and edited to sound more realistic.
Light Buzzing
Background: Because the play is set on an indoor soccer field, the sound of the overhead lights buzzing is heard throughout the entirety of the play.
Purpose: The intended effect of this sound was to create a sense of anxiety, one of the central themes of the play.
This was played at a low enough volume that it did not give the cast, crew, and audience a headache, but present enough that it was noticeable.
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Light Killswitch
Background: At the top of the show the sound of the lights all coming on at once is heard.
Purpose: Because the beginning of the play is so chaotic, we wanted to have an abrupt start to throw the audience directly into the action while also giving context to the buzzing heard throughout the show.
I built this sound by layering recordings of a car door handle and gear shift on top of one another, lowering the pitch, and adding reverb.
Voices of Other Team
Background: throughout the play, the characters often reference the team that they are playing, who would be located right across the field. In these moments they can be heard through localized speakers to show where the opposing team would be in relation to the players on stage.
I recorded the dialogue of a few of the scenes during a rehearsal and edited it down to make the actual words less distinguishable and to make the voices sound farther away. Not only did this sound more natural, but also reinforced the theme that their real opponent in the play is not the other team but themselves. I created two different sounds to use in alternating scenes to make sure that it was not noticeable that it was a recording of the actual dialogue being used.
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Character Driven Music
Because the theme of identity is so prevalent in this work, I wanted all of the music I used to come from a place of identity within the characters, imagining the kinds of music that they would listen to at practice or at home. As I wanted to get an accurate idea and representation of the characters, I surveyed the actors, asking them about each of their characters' favorite bands or songs to listen to would be, and what their characters might contribute to the "team playlist" listened to at practice. I then used their suggestions to cultivate a playlist that I felt was representational of the team as a whole.