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((Sound))

Sound Design, Engineering
and Equipment Rental

I've just started a new Blog on topics of web technology, theater infrastructure, and community building, Theater for the Future. It's been getting some attention, and was mentioned in Time Out Chicago as "one of the smartest voices in the theatrosphere".

The first year of the new BackstageJobs.com engine has seen 2500 contacts and a growing average of 1100 jobs around the country. Just broke 1000, and remember that's new, fresh, hot-off-the-press jobs for theater folk. I haven't given up on the development of some long-wished-for features yet, and hope to wrap 'em up in March, and begin our next national theater listing project, codenamed Back in Black.

I've got several shows running right now, including:

- Bilal Dardai's world premiere hit Contraption at the Neo-Futurarium

- Matt Reeder's How I Learned to Drive at Backstage Theater Company (playing at the Viaduct)

Also opening several exciting productions in the near future, including:

- John Gawlik's warm-hearted (and a little tongue-in-cheek) Sylvia at Metropolis

- Trip to Bountiful at the Goodman (for which I'm assisting Brett Jarvis)

- New Leaf's Chicago Premiere of Morris Panych's Girl in the Goldfish Bowl. For this show I'm also collaborating with composer wunderkind Steve Ptacek to create a whole bunch of original music, and (we hope) even an album to be released with the production. Of course you can hear a preview of the music right nowin New Leaf's behind-the-scenes podcast.

"Nick Keenan's tremendous AM-radio sound design [helps] to suggest the way a life is remembered in bits and pieces: Memories are triggered by the smell of a blanket or the sound of a Moody Blues song, and can be reassuring and discomfiting at the same time."
- Time Out Chicago, Feb. 14, 2008 - How I Learned to Drive

"New Leaf seems to have selected The Dining Room to showcase its two most rarefied assets: its queerly elegant found space ... and its invaluable resident sound designer. As the cast pantomimes all the props to Nick Keenan's recorded, carefully placed effects of delicate papers being rustled or rattling flatware getting polished, you suspect the designer knows even better than the playwright the sound of a WASP's nest."
- Time Out Chicago, Oct. 18, 2007 - The Dining Room


[a] "moody crafter of muted soundscapes"
- Time Out Chicago, Nov. 11, 2006 - Woyzeck

"Nick Keenan has devised an effective sound scheme (splicing classical music with sounds of furious sketching)"
- Time Out Chicago, Sep. 21, 2006

"... the distant gunshot that echoes throughout [Book of Days] (a masterful, haunting effect by sound designer Nick Keenan) is the stuff of nightmares."
- Windy City Times, May 3, 2006

"a top-shelf sound designer"
- Time Out Chicago, May 26, 2005

"... Nick Keenan's performance piece Lexicon ... is ambitious, challenging, and entertaining ..."
- Chicago Reader, May 27, 2005

Computerized Sound Playback Automation Systems
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Nick's Original Audio Performance Piece, Lexicon

Pop Culture-laced Explosion Fest for the Neo-Futurists original, History of Bombing
Ambient Soundscape for A Streetcar Named Desire

Live Vocal Effects for Original Puppet Musical, Archipelago of Delight
Foley Design for Staged Radio Play, War of the Worlds

A Few Good Men (Raven Theatre) - Main Theme and Curtain Call
Galileo (the side project) - Into Act I
Uncle Vanya (Apple Tree Theatre) - Transitions & Incidentals

Close to Victory, by Idris Goodwin (New Leaf Theatre) - Underscores / Transitions

Girl in Hyacinth Blue (New Leaf Theatre) - Original Composition

Themes from Lexicon (New Leaf Theatre) -
Fire and Water
Curtain Call

You can hear (and purchase royalty-free!) some of my compositions at productiontrax.com:

2008 and upcoming

New Leaf Theatre - Girl in the Goldfish Bowl
Metropolis - Sylvia
Goodman Theatre - The Trip to Bountiful (Assisting Brett Jarvis)
Backstage Theatre Company - How I Learned to Drive
The Neo-Futurists - Contraption
Goodman Theatre - Shining City (Assisting Obadiah Eaves)

2007

The Side Project - Butt Nekkid
The Side Project - Smart
New Leaf Theatre - The Dining Room
Collaboraction - Siddhartha Project
Metropolis - High School Musical
Greasy Joan & Co. - Wake Up, Apocalypse (Awake!)
Goodman Theatre - Mirror of the Invisible World (Assisting Michael Bodeen)
Goodman Theatre - Oedipus Complex (Assisting Todd Barton)
Greasy Joan & Co. - Sueno
Dog & Pony - Mr. Marmalade
New Leaf - Vox Pandora
Metropolis - A Streetcar Named Desire
White Horse Theater - The Wiz
the side project - Katzelmacher
the side project - Thief River
New Leaf - The Permanent Way
Neo-Futurists - You Asked For It!

2006

Greasy Joan & Co. - Woyzeck
Dog & Pony - Dead City
Raven - American Buffalo (JEFF CITATION NOMINATION)
Metropolis - I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change
New Leaf Theatre - The Master Builder
Serendipity / Live Bait - Vegas Baby, by Gerrit O'Neill
Prop Thtr / Curious Theater Branch - Choice, by Courtney Berne
Metropolis Performing Arts Center - The Nerd
Raven - Book of Days
New Leaf Theatre - Accelerando
Steep Theater - Of Mice and Men
Neo-Futurists - A Child's History of Bombing

2005

The Side Project - Crave
Raven Theatre - A Few Good Men
New Leaf Theatre - Limbo Tales
Metropolis Performing Arts Center - War of the Worlds
The Side Project - Galileo
The Free Associates - Improvisation with the Vampire
Apple Tree Theatre - Uncle Vanya
New Leaf Theatre - Lexicon (In the Spotlight 2005)
Bailiwick Repertory - Planet of the Bisexuals
Apple Tree Theatre - Hello Again
Raven Theatre - Dancing at Lughnasa
Metropolis Performing Arts Center - The Odd Couple

2004

Visions & Voices - Arrangement for Two Violas
Raven Theatre - A Streetcar Named Desire
New Leaf Theatre - Brilliant Traces
Visions & Voices - [the] Violent Sex
Apple Tree Theatre - A Man of No Importance
New Leaf Theatre - Girl in Hyacinth Blue
Raven Theatre - The Man Who Had All the Luck

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