In a run-down rural America that has been co-opted by cold opportunists, the dysfunctional Tate family is destroyed by a genetic ‘curse’ of anger, despair and violence, coupled with the encroaching “zombies” (land speculators) who subvert and sabotage the American Dream.

Winner of the 2005 Patté Award for Sound Design

My sound design for this production illustrates and magnifies the emptiness that the characters feel. To do this I placed a microphone in the refrigerator on the stage. The microphone was wired to a reverb unit and a speaker located behind it. Each time an actor used the fridge, the dialog and slamming of the door was amplified with a cavernous echo.

Praise in the media for Curse of the Starving Class

“But the suggestive, working kitchen (set design by Cygnet’s Sean Murray) is excellently enhanced by the evocative sound design (M. Scott Grabau) and lighting (Eric Lotze). We truly see/hear/feel/smell Shepard’s gritty, rustic America. And it isn’t a pretty picture.”

Pat Launer
San Diego Theater Scene

“Eric Lotze's lighting isolates or dapples characters lost in memory or fantasy, while sound designer M. Scott Grabau turns a symbolically empty old refrigerator into a voice-altering machine whenever these emotionally starving characters open that fridge door.”

Anne Marie Welsh
San Diego Union Tribune