Reddit mentions of The Great Comet: The Journey of a New Musical to Broadway

“Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812”. I’d be fine with either replicating Mimi Lien’s set for the Broadway production or going back to a smaller, intimate tent setting as it had been done off-Broadway. I never got to see it live, but after reading the story of the making of the musical, I’d really love to see it in either setting. My dream is that they’ll do a milestone anniversary production at some point, even if it’s a limited one month run just in NYC or the ART or something.

If you love Sondheim I highly recommend his Finishing the Hat/Look, I made a Hat. These two books contain lyrics from all his shows, annotated with anecdotes and insightful observations written by Sondheim himself.

Other musicals also have books that trace the whole development process and provide a behind-the-scene look of the show, such as Hamilton: A Revolution, The Great Comet: The Journey of a New Musical to Broadway and Wicked: The Grimmerie

This is presumably the book in question. Do keep in mind that we had to submit the article about the sound long before we actually went into production, so there are some outdated things, including an image from a piece of software that was not ultimately used in the show, but so it goes.

As you might have guessed, I was a member of team sound for this production and still hold it very close to my heart. It’s funny that you say that we were the first in aspects of sound, as even the equipment manufacturer told us their gear wouldn’t do what we wanted it to do... crazy ride.

In terms of mic placement for that production, it was definitely a conscious choice to use boom mics. Part of this was practical since the performers spend all of the show in front of some aspect of the sound system their voices are coming from and this helps increase our ability to have higher volume before feedback occurs, but part of this also came from the director. You will notice that Rachel’s current production (Hadestown... not sure people have heard of it) also has all actors in boom mics. I was told that this is because she does not want to pretend that the equipment/technology does not exist, which I totally get. This gets into the complicated question of which parts of the theater experience can we as the audience pretend don’t exist and which take us out of the action, which is a very personal thing. As a sound person, I am severely biased and don’t think we should apologize any more for the mics we need to get the show’s appropriate sound than the Lighting Designer should apologize for the lights on trusses all over the space which make the show look beautiful.