This was the experiment portion of my thesis entitled "Interactive Sound Design: real-time control of sound in theatre performance." The main objective of my thesis is to determine if the use of interactive sound technology can enhance the "liveness" of theatre performance by making it more engaging and spontaneous. I have researched the techniques and tools for human-computer interaction used in several different art disciplines such as installation art, performance art, new media art, sound art, dance, and electronic music, in order to examine how they might be adapted for theatrical sound design. The purpose of the performance was to explore and demonstrate a few different interactive sound techniques and tools found in this research, in order to discover some of the challenges and potential benefits of their application in theatre sound design.

This performance experimented with the notion of gestural interaction to trigger elements of the sound design. This is approach has been utilized by several dance companies in performances whereby different parameters of the music are manipulated by body movements. In this case, gestures would simply trigger sounds. The actor was wearing two piezo-resistive sensors that measured the flex angle on his arms, connected to the transmitter of a wireless sensor-to-MIDI interface to send the sensor data to the computer.

Another technique explored was triggering sounds by the actor's contact with objects onstage. This is common in installation artworks, by having the viewers touch or grab objects in the piece. The set consisted of a staircase with six steps, and as the actor climbed each step different sounds were triggered. This was achieved by using three long strips of force resistive sensors that measured the pressure placed on every other step. Sounds were triggered on the press and on the release.

The final concept experimented with was the use of real-time audio effects processing, which is used extensively by performance artists and electronic musicians. Ableton Live is used widely in music performance for its ease in mapping any available parameter to MIDI. Effects such as equalization and reverb were mapped via MIDI to different keys and knobs of an M-Audio O2 MIDI controller keyboard. The soundboard operator could trigger and manipulate sounds, adjust output levels, and mute and un-mute channels using the keyboard.

The performance was problematic, because one of the arm sensors was triggering sounds when there was barely any movement from the actor. This was due mostly to how the sensor was attached to the actors' arm, although having software that could adjust the sensitivity of the sensors, or filter out unwanted values would have been ideal. As an experiment, however, it was quite useful, as it demonstrated the challenges of employing interactive sound in theatre.