This summary provides the high-level details about the theatrical sound installation "Earshot" in 3 sentences: Jaime Sunwoo, a recent graduate, conceived and directed "Earshot", a collection of 12 radio plays written by different playwrights from around the world that will be presented simultaneously from speakers at 12 tables in bars in New York City in early May, with artifacts from the characters lives at each table. Sunwoo assembled over 50 collaborators to develop the show over the last year. Audience members will be able to freely move between tables to listen to snippets of conversations from the different plays occurring at each table while interacting with the characters' possessions left at the tables.

1. Kemy Lin | April 23, 2015 | Preview | No Comments
EARSHOT, A THEATRICAL
SOUND INSTALLATION, AT
BONNIE VEE AND KILO
BRAVO
Photo by Taj Birkett
A poet, landlord, and gymrat walk into a bar…
… Sounds like the beginnings of an overwrought and predictable joke
but it’s actually the premise of “Earshot,” a theatrical sound
installation directed by Jaime Sunwoo, a New York native and recent
graduate. “Earshot,” which Sunwoo also refers to as a “collection of
audioplays,” consists of 12 radio plays written by 11 different
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2. playwrights from around the world. In its final form, “Earshot” will be
presented in bars around New York City in early May; the 12 radio
plays will broadcast, simultaneously, in a choreographed cacophony
from speakers at 12 tables populated by artifacts from the characters’
lives.
Sunwoo became interested in theater and radio as an undergraduate
at Yale University. In addition to formally studying sound and
installation art as a Fine Arts major, she also wrote and hosted her
own radio show, “The Food Whisperer,” in which she held
conversations with food items in the dining hall, allowing listeners to
truly get to know their sustenance. She first conceived of the idea for
“Earshot” in April 2014 and began developing the show shortly
thereafter. In the last year, she has recruited over 50 collaborators—
including 12 writers and 29 voice actors and a handful of sound
editors, stagehands, photographers, prop designers, and musicians—
and successfully funded the show’s expenses through a Kickstarter
campaign. For Sunwoo, the development and execution of “Earshot”
has relied on her reaching out to an extremely large number of
people, and she sees “Earshot” as an opportunity to showcase and
promote the work of all of her collaborators—from up-and-coming
musicians to aspiring screenwriters.
Not only did Sunwoo assemble a diverse group of artists to work on
“Earshot,” but, as director, she united the 12 different plays and their
casts of characters into a common universe. The radio plays are all
set in a single bar, like those in which “Earshot” will be performed,
and, in each play, the characters sit around tables, conversing. In one
play, two co-workers go on their first anxiety-ridden date; in another,
a three aging rockstars commiserate about the fate of their Nirvana
cover band. Over the duration of the plays, characters from different
plays occasionally interact—phone calls and cat calls are exchanged
—and their lives converge through both mundane and coincidental
events.
Drinks in hand, audience members will be able to navigate freely
from table to table to listen to the individual radio plays. Not only will
the audience hear—or rather, eavesdrop on—snippets of the
characters’ conversations at each table, but they can also sit in
characters’ seats and handle their trinkets and clothing. These
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3. artifacts—including a wedding photo, handcuffs, business cards, and
guinea pig food—function as “visual biographies,” Sunwoo explains,
and toe a “weird boundary between fiction and reality, as they live in
the real world but reflect the experiences and lives of fictional
characters.” On some days, Sunwoo crisscrossed New York City,
visiting a sex shop, a thrift shop, and theater, in order to source
props, tracing the daily paths of the characters.
As they cluster around the 12 tables in the bar, “Earshot” audience
members will occupy the places of the characters who have
seemingly vacated the premises for a moment, leaving their
disembodied voices emanating from the table and their possessions
splayed on the table. Sunwoo sees “Earshot” as facilitating interaction
between audience members; she suggests, “Meeting strangers [over]
a dialogue that you’re both eavesdropping on creates an intimate
moment… you’re experiencing something together… you are in that
character’s seat, occupying their body in a ghostly way.” Perhaps
“Earshot” even goes as far as to challenge the detached, disembodied
nature of contemporary interaction by challenging audience
members to directly confront one another. As Milo, a character in
writer Semyon White’s radio play aptly muses, “We’re all so wrapped
up in our little technology bubbles it’s made us terrified to actually
speak to another human being face to face. God forbid we could ever
just sit for a moment and take note of our unfiltered surroundings.”
Though audiences will likely not hear a single one of the 12 plays in
its entirety, the choose-your-own-adventure style of “Earshot” gives
audience members the chance to converge and converse with
strangers—both fictional and real—over the course of the night. As
the radio plays end and the voices of the characters slowly fade out,
the conversations in the bar will hopefully continue, carried on by
audience members and patrons and emerging from the 12 tables in
the bar.
“Earshot” will be performed at the following times, dates, and
locations:
May 4-6 2015, more show dates TBA
May 4, 8PM, 9:40PM at Bonnie Vee (17 Stanton St, Lower East Side,

4. Tags: interactive, jaime sunwoo, Kemy Lin, radio play, theater in
bars, theatrical sound installation
KemyLin
Kemy Lin is a visual artist and arts journalist who is fixated on
conspiracy theories about lunar travel. She also likes to talk
about her hometown (rainy Portland, Oregon) and tweets on
rare occasions. She currently writes for Hyperallergic.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Manhattan) 21+ EVENT
May 6, 8PM, 9:40PM at Kilo Bravo (180 N 10th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211)
ALL AGES
Tickets can be purchased at EarshotPlay.com
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