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Meet the 2022 Tony Nominees: MJ's Gareth Owen
May 17, 2024
The countdown to the Tony Awards has a officially begun! On June 12, the brightest stars of the 2021-22 season will shine even brighter as they gather at the iconic Radio City Music Hall to celebrate Broadway's biggest night. Leading up to the 75th Annual Tony Awards, BroadwayWorld is getting up close and personal with the nominees. Today we're studying up on Gareth Owen!
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0:00
Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. My guest is Tony nominated this year for best sound design of a musical for MJ the Michael Jackson musical. Please welcome Gareth Owen. Hey, Gareth, how are you
0:13
I'm great. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me alone
0:18
Now, where are you joining us today from? I'm joining you guys from my home in Amsterdam. This isn't actually, this is not. God, can we just start again? Sorry
0:29
Yeah, totally. It's all good. It's all good. You're like, wait a bit. We'll be fine
0:33
This is all good. It's happened before. Listen, here we go. Three, two, one
0:39
Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. My guest is Tony nominated this year for best sound design of a musical for MJ, the Michael
0:47
Jackson musical. Please welcome, Gareth Owen. Hey, Gareth, how are you? Great
0:53
Thank you, Richard. Thank you so much for having me alone. Yeah. Where are you joining us today from
0:58
My home is actually in Amsterdam and we're actually outside the city at the moment in the country
1:06
But yeah, I'm joining you from the Netherlands in Europe. Well, if you ever want to switch out, we can do that
1:12
I would love to sit by that beautiful pool and you can come stay here in my apartment here in New York City
1:17
It's a done deal. Well, listen, congratulations. What does this Tony nomination mean to you coming for MJ the musical
1:25
I mean, for me, you know, the first cassette tape I ever bought was Michael Jackson's thriller
1:32
You know, I've listened to his music constantly for the last 30 years
1:36
To me, he's the greatest musical artist, really, whoever lived. And the whole process of putting the MJ musical together, I kind of felt this weight of having to do that justice
1:51
And I kind of had this idea that, okay, I'm sitting here in the auditorium. And I can imagine that Michael Jackson himself is kind of like sitting next to me
1:58
And what would he think? Would he be happy with what I'm doing? Or would he be like very unamused
2:03
And so to get this nomination, I mean, I can't ask MJ if he's happy
2:08
But to get this nomination, it kind of reaffirms that maybe he would have been happy
2:14
Yeah. What were some of your biggest inspirations with designing the sound
2:18
Was it listening to his tapes? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as I say, I've been listening to his music
2:23
my whole life and doing that justice was certainly the inspiration for the MJ Sound Also the idea of wanting to bring the idea of wanting to bring what it might have been like to have been a Michael Jackson concert to Broadway
2:39
I mean, I know we talk about that a lot, and indeed, I do a lot of that kind of show
2:44
but it was really important to me to try to recreate what it might have been like
2:51
to have been standing in the audience, watching Michael Jackson on stage
2:55
and dangerous still those kind of huge productions that you did. Well, I can tell you you did a flawless job
3:04
because I have seen Michael Jackson many times in concert at Madison Square Garden, in New Jersey
3:10
and your sound design for MJ is not only flawless, it's breathtaking
3:15
and you take us from a rehearsal room, then you take us to these huge arenas
3:21
to do the numbers that we just saw in the rehearsal room, then it goes back to a rehearsal
3:25
room and it's just mind-blowing to the senses what you all created
3:29
and especially what you created with the sound. I mean, what were the biggest challenges for you with designing sound for this musical
3:38
Well, firstly, thank you. Coming from you, that means a lot. Thank you
3:45
I guess the biggest challenges were how do we make it intimate
3:50
How do we make it to people having a conversation in the corner of a rehearsal room
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while there's all this action, where Chris Wheelden, our director's got all of this movement and all of these little scenes happening and all of these animated conversations
4:04
But how do we focus on just these two people having this conversation in the corner of the room
4:08
And then how do we break that membrane moment? How do we move from this realistic dialogue scene into this explosive great concert and do it in such a way that the audience don't feel repelled
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so they don't feel ejected from the show, keeping them in the moments
4:26
keeping them in the production. It was a challenge. I'm not going to lie to it
4:31
It was definitely a challenge. Yeah. Well, I spoke to some of your other creators
4:35
who have also been nominated for Tony's this season for MJ, and the biggest word they used was collaboration
4:42
And I was going to ask you what it was like collaborating with them and, of course, with your incredible director
4:47
Christopher Wheelton. I mean, yeah, collaboration will be the first word. I would use to describe the MJ process as well
4:54
I mean, you put that group of creatives together in a room, and they're all at the top of the game
4:58
Everybody knows exactly what they're doing. And you know I think for me possibly the greatest thing about it was that Christopher Whelden and our producer Leah Voleck at no point at any point in the entire production process did they lose their nerve
5:17
And from the beginning, they said, we want to feel like we're in a Michael Jackson concert
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And at no point, at any point in the entire process, did that conversation happen, which every sense
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designer watching this, be like, yeah, I know what he's talking about. That conversation where
5:34
you know, we get to the end of a show and, um, Gareth, Gareth, could you, could you just stay behind
5:39
Um, yeah, you know, I just think maybe it's all just a little bit, you know, just a bit
5:45
I think we just need to tone, just a little bit less. Um, we never had that conversation
5:51
At no point did Leah or Chris ever lose their nerve. They were like, we know what we want. We know what our
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audience want. We know what this show deserves. We know what Michael Jackson would want. And we'd
6:00
going to let you deliver it. We're not going to stand in the way and we're not going to interfere and we're going to trust you and trust Michael's music to create those moments. And to me
6:10
that was like, it was, it was, it was pretty special. It was pretty special experience
6:15
Now, where did your love for sound designing begin? And what do you love the most about designing
6:21
sound for musical theater? I mean, I started off in the rock and role world. So I, I started my
6:29
career, well, I actually started my career hauling huge heavy mains cables through muddy festival
6:33
fields and, you know, being the person who's up at five o'clock in the morning rigging huge delay
6:39
towers of speakers after everybody else has gone home. And, you know, so for me, it's all about
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the music. I started in rock and roll, ended up mixing some of the biggest bands in the world
6:49
and then kind of sidestepped into musical theatre because I realized that nothing was a bigger
6:54
challenge than getting a musical theatre show to sound good. even in these huge stadiums
7:01
what I was effectively doing in rock and roll was most of the time
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it was making two guitars, drums and a couple of vocals sound great in a big space
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And if you then compare that to what you have to do in musical theater, I was like, yeah, this is what I want to do
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So for me, musical theater sound design, it's never been about plays
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For a while, I used to do a play every now and again because I thought I needed to. I thought I needed to do that to be credible
7:24
because if I didn't do a play, then I wasn't serious. But these days, I'm unashamedly
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musical theatre and it's all about the music and of course the shows
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happen to be great as well and that a wonderful bonus in the case of M I think the show pretty cool But it all about the music and all about the people as well I realize now that life too short to sit in a theater
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a dark theater, a dark box for 14 hours a day, creating new shows with people you don't like
7:51
Life's too short for that. And yeah, there you go. Some of Gareth's thoughts about creating theater
7:56
and why I love musical theaters as I always so much. If you could sum up the best part of the experience
8:03
of working on MJ. What is it for you, Garret? I think it was the first preview
8:10
when we got to the end of wannabe starting something. And the audience
8:20
leapt to their feet in a way that I haven't seen since Tracy Bennett
8:26
playing Judy Garland in End of the Rainbow. They let to their feet like mid-shad
8:32
bang, like that stretch. And there wouldn't sit down. And there's this huge guy in the show
8:38
a huge dancer called Ray. He's got arms the size of my thighs
8:42
And at the end of this dance number, he's holding a relatively small girl
8:47
on his shoulder in this sort of big arm. And I'm watching him. And, you know, this huge man
8:52
this man made of muscle. He's like beginning to shake. He's like all his muscles
8:56
He's like, he's going to drop that. He's going to drop. He's going to drop. He's going to drop. Or what are we going to do
9:00
They're holding these bones in. and everyone's in these like really uncomfortable finished dance positions and all holding
9:06
And the audience is just cheering and cheering and cheering and cheering and it won't stop. And yeah, I'm just like, I'm just watching the cast
9:12
They get any second now, they're just all going to fall over. And eventually, just eventually somebody kind of stood up into a normal position and everybody else
9:21
everybody else followed and then the audience finally sat down. And this continued for a long time
9:26
I mean, our biggest problem with the show in the early days was stopping mid-show standing evasions
9:30
it was just becoming a real problem because we just couldn't keep the show moving. You know, we get four or five mid-show standing invasions
9:36
And it was always after these huge amazing musical and dance numbers
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It was just, yeah, it was an amazing experience. Well, I have friends go to MJ all the time, and those moments are still happening
9:49
Just so you know, the show is stopped. Fans are on every performance
9:53
And a lot of that has to do with your beautiful sound. Congratulations
9:57
I will see you on June 12th at the tone. awards my friend. I wish you the best of luck and thank you for doing what you do for the
10:04
theatre and moving it forward. Thank you so much and I really appreciate you taking time to talk to me
10:09
Thank you
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