Profiles

Pool, Director of Creative Technology at the West Yorkshire Playhouse (WYP), has worked in theatre for over 30 years. He has been at the WYP since it opened in 1990. Recently Mic was in New York to accept a Tony Award for his work on the Broadway production of The 39 Steps. The visit was a rare bit of showbiz glitz in his busy work schedule.

"We arrived at the Tony's immediately after Liza Minnelli - so all the paparazzi cameras were flashing at her as she was walking down the red carpet just ahead of us."

Mic's unusual name, pronounced as in Mick by the way, is simply an abbreviation of Mick that stuck - nothing to do with mic(rophone), more's the pity.

So straight to the crux of the matter. What does a sound designer actually do? Mic told BBC Leeds:

Mic starts his work with a 'sound world'

"Two parts are important to what I do. Firstly, I imagine a 'sound world' for the play - then I have to use the tools at my disposal to share what is in my head with the play's audience.

"Secondly, I am involved with every part of the sound in the play that isn't the actor's unaided voice."

Of course, compared to the actors, the sets and the costumes - a lot of the audience
as it watches a play won't notice the work of the sound designer.

"If the audience hasn't noticed my work then I've done my job, the sound should be a normal part of the play. Some sound designs are what I call 'listen to me' designs and that is not the most helpful. While the audience's disbelief is suspended nothing, especially the sound, should take them out of that mood."

So how do you get into the profession? The young Mic had a musical background, he was a chorister at Magdalen College, Oxford at the age of 10. He got to own his first reel-to-reel tape recorder at 11 years old, later he was fascinated by the equipment used when the choir was involved in professional recordings with the Decca label.

"By the age of 16 I realised I wasn't going to be a professional musician and I made the move into theatre."

That was to be the the end of Mic settling down to simply watch a performance.

"Now I find it hard to watch a film, or even listen to a CD without concentrating on what is going on with the sound."

Mic's long career has spanned from the world of physical tape to the computer age, even his early work at the WYP featured reel-to-reel tapes, and the new digital era provides its own rewards and challenges.

"The digital revolution has made my work easier in some ways, now I can communicate data around the world very quickly. I can also, almost exactly, replicate the sound design of a show in any theatre.

"But the digital downside is what I call 'the curse of infinite possibilities' in other words everything can be done... but it is tougher to decide exactly what is worthwhile doing."

Obviously Mic Pool made the right decisions for The 39 Steps - a production that started at the WYP, toured the UK and arrived on Broadway - it won the very first Tony awarded for Sound Design.

"The 39 steps was a show about acting so it was ironic that the creative team were nominated. Really, working on it was something delightful, it had lots of comic timing, lots of sound and lots of effects."

Despite the delight with which Mic accepted the award, in front of 6,000 people, he never stops thinking ahead to the next challenge.

"My next work is with a one-man show running for just one performance.

"I like to work across the whole theatrical range and that is what I enjoy about the job. Just recently, I was working on Bad Girls the Musical and then went straight onto to work on Wagner's Ring Cycle. That's me, jumping from 'highbrow' to 'lowbrow', from big to small."