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The Mousetrap (Sound Designer) 
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Nancy T. Hansen Theatre - Purdue University - September 2017
Directed by Richard Stockton Rand

The Role of sound:

 

  The role of sound was to create the mysterious forces that affect the characters in the play. For example, the blizzard during the first scene of the show is an external force that is driving the play forward. Not only is it the force that is trapping each character in the house, but it is also the storm that is before the storm. It acts as sort of a placeholder for the real storm, the murder, that takes place in the manor after the storm has subsided. The radio before Mrs. Boyles death is a mysterious force predicting her murder while most of the other sound cues are used to throw off the audience. They reinforce suspicion by adding a new layer of uniqueness to each character.

Paperwork:

Concept Statement:

 

  Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap is a play that really questions if we know the people around us, or do we just know who they appear to be? The play is set in a 1940's guest home called the Monkswell Manor. It is the first day of the guest home being open and many guests arrive. To their dismay, Mollie and Giles Ralston quickly realize that they may be in over their heads once a police officer arrives at their guest home believing someone in the house is tied to a recent murder that took place in London. This classic whodunnit really makes the audience play detective to try and figure out who the potential killer is.

 

  To contribute to the mystery behind the play and to the idea that we never really know who the people are that are closest to us, I wanted to focus on what we don't know about people. The sound acts as the mysterious forces that affect and drive us as people. That's what makes us only know what people appear to be. We don't really know what drives a person to act, or not to act, on certain impulses. These underlying forces explain why the killer has the desire to kill and why everyone is so suspicious of one another in the play. 

Cues:

ProductionPhotos:

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