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[0:13] Sarah Goodman: Hi, I'm Sarah. I'm a sound designer and professional lesbian theater geek. I'm a huge fan of all things Broadway, cabaret, and pop culture. I've got tattoos of Bernadette Peters and Liza Minelli. In my podcast, I'm looking at theater through a queer lens and discussing the intersection between the craft and the LGBTQ community, aka me, my friends, and family. But today I'm starting a very special series for Women's History Month, and that is Women in Sound. I'll be interviewing all different types of women who work in sound in theater and in the cabaret space in New York and beyond. My first episode is with Sun Hee Kil. Sun Hee Kil is a sound designer and sound engineer who has associate designed on Broadway productions and the PyeongChang Winter Olympics opening and closing ceremonies in South Korea.

Her sound designs include Off-Broadway, regional, and international theater productions. Her sound designs were nominated for Henry Hewes Awards and World Stage Design and selected to exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial. Sunny is an Assistant Professor of Sound Design at Purchase College, State University of New York, and a proud member of United Scenic Artists Local 829, the Audio Engineering Society, and Theatrical Sound Designers and Composers Association. I'm so excited for you to hear my fabulous interview with Sunny. It's coming up right now on Good Show.

[1:42] Sun Hee Kil: Hello, Sarah. Thank you so much for inviting me.

[1:46] Sarah Goodman: Oh, thank you so much for spending some time with me today. I am so excited to deep dive into your career and talk to you about sound design and sound, but I'd love to get started with how did you first get involved in theater? I noticed that you have two undergrad degrees, one in English and one in theater. What made you want to be a theater major? Had you done theater as a child growing up in South Korea? What was your exposure to theater there?

[2:13] Sun Hee Kil: Actually, I grew up in the second biggest city of South Korea in the 70s and 80s, but we didn't have very many live performances. But I got to see every single performance coming to the city throughout my elementary school to middle school and high school years, which is impossible for South Korea high school students because we go to school from like 6 a.m. until 11 p.m. study, study, study.

[2:41] Sarah Goodman: Wow, that's a long day.

[2:42] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, so I couldn't find any friends to go with me because they were like, "I have to study." Sunny, you don't want to go study, but I have to study. I was alone all the time, but luckily my father got all the tickets and it was at home, all the comp tickets. So I could go see. And then my sister is a researcher and pediatrician, so they had zero interest in theater. Nobody's doing theater, nobody's listening to music in my house.

[3:11] Sarah Goodman: Okay, so you were the special one.

[3:13] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah. So I got spoiled by all these performances and also watched very many 16 millimeter VHS tapes of Rogers and Hammerstein American musicals.

[3:26] Sarah Goodman: Oh, yeah. Do you have a favorite of the old classics?

[3:29] Sun Hee Kil: Sound of Music, King and I.

[3:31] Sarah Goodman: King and I, yeah.

[3:32] Sun Hee Kil: The theatrical card effects and the illusion we could get from those were just mind-blowing to me. So I wanted to study musicals. I didn't know what that was, but I wanted to do that for the rest of my life.

[3:48] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[3:49] Sun Hee Kil: But there were not many theater schools in South Korea. So when I tried to go to college in 1994, there were only seven theater schools in the whole country.

[4:02] Sarah Goodman: Wow, that's amazing.

[4:04] Sun Hee Kil: That's very small. Now it's more than a hundred, I believe.

[4:08] Sarah Goodman: Wow. Oh, that's a big growth.

[4:10] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah. Like less than 30, 40 years. So anyways, none of those schools taught musicals. The closest department was theater. So I went to theater school, just plain play, not doing any musicals. And then in my junior year, Samsung had entertainment, you know, Samsung who makes the telephone company, the cell phones and TVs.

[4:35] Sarah Goodman: TVs and yeah, all kinds of electronics.

[4:37] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, they had briefly entertainment branches in one of their enterprises companies. They had Samsung Entertainment. So they started importing Broadway and Western musicals, the big ones at the time, like 1990s, like Broadway 42nd Street, Miss Saigon, Cats, Les Misérables, those very big mega musicals.

[5:03] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, like the big Cameron Mackintosh stuff.

[5:06] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah. And then I went to see Broadway 42nd Street. And for the first time, I saw anything like that big scope of things.

[5:15] Sarah Goodman: Yes. I love 42nd Street.

[5:17] Sun Hee Kil: And I had never seen tap dancing, even through any movies or anything in my whole life.

[5:23] Sarah Goodman: Oh, that was your first exposure to tap dancing. How cool.

[5:26] Sun Hee Kil: And that was so crazy because half of the cast members were American Broadway actors.

[5:32] Sarah Goodman: Oh yeah.

[5:33] Sun Hee Kil: Because they didn't have enough time to teach South Korea actors to do tap dancing. But they translated all the languages into Korean.

[5:44] Sarah Goodman: So those American actors pretending to speak just all Ansang were members.

[5:50] Sun Hee Kil: They didn't have any single solo lines, but it was so funny. They were just miming, lip syncing.

[5:56] Sarah Goodman: Oh wow, they're listening to the other people singing.

[6:00] Sun Hee Kil: That's so funny. Why am I seeing these Western people here? Why are Americans here? And there weren't many foreigners in South Korea at the time either. I've seen some Mormon missionary people. Other than that, I never saw foreigners in South Korea either.

[6:16] Sarah Goodman: Oh wow, interesting.

[6:18] Sun Hee Kil: So anyways, after I saw that one, that day, I really made up my mind. I'm going to work for musicals for the rest of my life.

[6:27] Sarah Goodman: That's so cool.

[6:28] Sun Hee Kil: Whatever that is, the funniest thing I've seen in my whole life. So I was touring that one. And then when I graduated, I was lucky to start with. I worked for every possible job, like PAs and assistant directing, loading crew, running crew, all kinds. And then finally, I started following a very famous sound designer. And then that's how I started my career in 2001.

[6:57] Sun Hee Kil: So I started following the very famous sound designer. And there was only one sound engineering book written in Korean language at the time.

[7:10] Sarah Goodman: Oh wow.

[7:11] Sun Hee Kil: It's also a recording book. There was no live sound book or anything else.

[7:16] Sarah Goodman: Oh my gosh.

[7:17] Sun Hee Kil: And then all the manuals were written in some other languages, not in Korean. So I had to study a language to study sound design anyways.

[7:27] Sarah Goodman: Wow.

[7:28] Sun Hee Kil: And then I was struggling and then my sister also told me that, you know what, this country has no future. So if you want to work on Broadway, go work on Broadway. So she encouraged me to study English more. So I decided to come here.

[7:46] Sun Hee Kil: So I transferred to a second college. So I studied English to come here. But I couldn't come right after because I failed my English test.

[7:58] Sarah Goodman: Oh no.

[8:01] Sun Hee Kil: For five years.

[8:02] Sarah Goodman: Oh my gosh. You kept trying.

[8:02] Sun Hee Kil: I never gave up. I cried so much every month. I could take the test every month. So every month I cried and came for the testing center and walked home. I don't even deserve to take the bus. I should walk home.

[8:18] Sarah Goodman: Oh no, it was like 10 miles.

[8:23] Sun Hee Kil: Oh my god, it was very expensive too. It's more than a hundred dollars. I had to keep going back every month. I spent a lot of money.

[8:34] Sarah Goodman: Oh my gosh, wow. Finally, that's an amazing determination though.

[8:39] Sun Hee Kil: But yeah, the problem is in South Korea at the time, now the markets are way bigger, but they did a lot of illegal things. They just copied big productions from other countries, translated scripts without any permission, and the producers started putting the production. And if that didn't go well, they ran away. Some producers went to Japan to write close to other countries to run away. There was no way for me to get paid. It was very little to begin with, so my life was very miserable. And then another thing that encouraged me to come here was as Samsung imported more, other companies started importing more Broadway and West End shows. When those shows come with a full license, they bring their own set design, lighting, sound designs, all that.

So choreographers, directors, music directors, and designers come and train local groups to build things for them and then train us to mix the show right. So I talked to them a lot, and me, the bag of musicals I've seen, they were so great, and I wanted to learn more from them. That was another big reason for me to come here after I talked to them.

[10:09] Sun Hee Kil: I also went to West End with a Korean musical, okay, so it was like A2, A3, so second A2. And then I talked to people working on West End. I saw lots of West End musicals there too.

[10:27] Sarah Goodman: Yep.

[10:28] Sun Hee Kil: And then when did you decide to finally come over and get your master's degree in, I mean, Cincinnati?

[10:35] Sun Hee Kil: I decided in 2001, but I couldn't come until 2006, I told you. Because I kept taking the test.

[10:41] Sarah Goodman: Yes.

[10:44] Sun Hee Kil: And then I applied for many schools. I didn't get in. So my third year, finally I got into CCM. So I came here after.

[10:56] Sarah Goodman: And then you got your MFA in sound design there.

[10:58] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah. And then I had to take the university teaching job right after to maintain the immigration status. So the school, they sponsored me. So I went to the first school, took there. And I moved to the second school. And then got the green card and citizenship. So I could work outside of my school since 2016. So I started working in New York City.

[11:25] Sarah Goodman: Yeah. And you've done a lot in that last almost 10 years now. What a blessing.

[11:30] Sun Hee Kil: I'm so lucky.

[11:32] Sarah Goodman: Well, you've worked very hard for it as well.

[11:36] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah. I mean, I have nothing to do with it. I have no kids. I just have myself.

[11:43] Sarah Goodman: So I want to talk to you about what you love about sound design specifically as a particular part of the craft of theater. What is it about sound that you like?

[11:56] Sun Hee Kil: We are manipulating people's emotions a lot and then give a lot of information too. Without us, people cannot hear a thing in Broadway theaters or big theaters.

[12:09] Sarah Goodman: That's right.

[12:10] Sun Hee Kil: For this, even this podcast, without sound and technology, how can you record? How can you listen to this speaker?

[12:18] Sarah Goodman: Mm-hmm.

[12:20] Sun Hee Kil: And then in very many small budget productions, they have reduced scenery and featured design, and then one sound cue takes the audience members to the 1920s, right? In New York City or 14th century in Italy. We can do it with one sound cue. So I think it's a very great design. I think comparing all these feature designs, I mean, they are amazing, but sound is also the only other sense. We are only using the featured and audio designs in the theaters at this point. I mean, if you go to Disney, you have smell design, like touching design.

[13:10] Sarah Goodman: Right. Yeah, 4D, 5D, yeah.

[13:12] Sun Hee Kil: But not in theaters yet here. So although they started doing a little bit of smell, there was some bacon frying up in our town on Broadway this year. They added some smells into the show. Have you also seen True West?

[13:28] Sarah Goodman: Oh no, I haven't seen that.

[13:30] Sun Hee Kil: In act two, they set up like 20 something toasters and start making toast.

[13:35] Sarah Goodman: Oh wow.

[13:36] Sun Hee Kil: You know, when we go to theater, it's about like seven or eight. When you're in act two, it's nine or ten. Everybody's hungry already. And then you smell all this toast bread that kills me.

[13:54] Sun Hee Kil: And I got a little cranky at the end. I was like, where's the bacon? I need it. That's so amazing. Smells. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, it's really amazing how sound is quite a strong sense, and that it can really transform the emotions of the moment and what the audience is feeling, and like you said, kind of transport us anywhere in just a moment with just a little bit of a sound. Tell me a little bit more about what's your connection with music and being a musician and being a designer and making some original works sometimes for certain projects.

[14:26] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, I'm not a real composer. I went to theater school, right? I went to theater BA, I also went to sound design, man play, and then I didn't really learn about classical music composition. But nowadays we have a lot of great tools. That's right. Logic Pro, right?

[14:45] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, I love logic. I think the extension of sound design, the composition I'm doing, it's like electronic music. I could get help from these nice DAW machines. My grandmother's sister's husband. Because in Asia at the time, we all lived together. The whole family lived in the same towns, the clan. Uh-huh. He had a piano manufacturing factory.

[15:15] Sun Hee Kil: So all of the Opusprin's. We had to take serious classical piano lessons. Age of five. So I couldn't even read Korean at the time, but I learned how to read scores. Like Italian, right? Pianissimo. Axelandro. I'm like, what is this thing? So I hated it so much. Some of my cousins became professional musicians because they liked these. But I hated every single day.

[15:48] Sun Hee Kil: You didn't like playing piano. I mean, I was very active. I wanted to do Pekwan though every day, but they put me through one spot. You said I want to kick ass. Yeah. Sit here at the piano. Yeah, playing with balls and run away. Running everywhere every day until like 10 p.m. until my mom screamed like if you don't come back home now, you have no dinner. So that made me somehow. I have amazing pitch, almost perfect pitch.

[16:22] Sun Hee Kil: I can play the piano for most of the scores when I see it. Like I can just play like a local. I didn't want it. Well, I never wanted. I wanted to be a tech on the player at the time. But it comes in handy, I'm sure, especially like you said, perfect pitch, like being able to recognize tones and frequencies, especially as a sound designer. So helpful.

[16:48] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, very, very helpful. And that kind of brings me to a question about what's sort of your approach in a new space? Let's say you're in a space where the sound system is there, so you're not necessarily designing it from scratch. What's your approach for tuning the theater and what kinds of things are you listening for when you're first getting into a theater for the first time?

[17:10] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, everybody's just doing this song, clapping, right? Make sure the reverberation and then you go on stage or where you put your associate on stage and talk to me and then see how far you can go. So check the condition of the theater first, and if they have a house system, we play our lepros music, right? The music you always listen to. So you know what you're looking for.

[17:34] Sun Hee Kil: So play that and then figure out what's happening here. Do I have to add any feels or should I change the main? Do I have a potter? Or where can I put the subwoofers? So that's the psychovid process. I'm doing it and then come back and then talk to the production manager about the pod and the labors and loading days, right? Whether it's possible or not.

[18:01] Sun Hee Kil: And then of course that's what the director wants and then what the notion we are going the production. So yeah, it is a collaborative process. A lot of British engineers just listen to the music. A lot of Broadway engineers use a smart art or same eyeball. As a Korean American now. So I listen to my reference music a lot. And then I also do some smart.

[18:30] Sun Hee Kil: And then keep listening to that. Yeah. And for the listeners who may not know, Smart is a frequency analyzer. That's a real-time analyzer so that you can play white noise, pink noise, etc. and sort of see how the room is reacting, how the speakers are putting out the sound. Whether they're flat or whether they're heavy in one area or another.

[18:54] Sun Hee Kil: I would love to ask you when it comes to micing actors with gloves, do you prefer the head worn, forehead position or booms? I mean that go out on people's cheeks. I'm sure 99.9% of sound engineers right here. That's right. Put the boom out there. Get the mic right on the corner of their mouth. There's so much of a headroom.

[19:20] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, I think it really delivers a better sound. And I also would say personally, I think that the head worn mics are actually even more distracting on people's faces than the mics on their cheeks. Because not here, it's coming down. Sometimes between eyebrows. So low. Exactly. Exactly. I also read an article once about how humans are always looking for sets of eyes psychologically.

[19:45] Sun Hee Kil: It's part of our instinctual part of our brain. So you're looking for eyes to find animals, predators, other humans. And when we see something on someone's forehead, our eye keeps being drawn to it because we think it might be another eye. And our brain is trying to figure out what it is. And I think when we see something on the face, we immediately know it's a microphone, and then we forget about it and we never worry about it again.

[20:09] Sun Hee Kil: I mean, everybody knows we use microphones and speakers to amplify sound. That's right. But I yesterday I had a concert, so we had a boom microphone, and the ear rigs going on both there. And then the actors and I talked about it. Oh yeah, nowadays many of Broadway musicals have this head boom micro head-worn microphones, and then they are talking about it.

[20:34] Sun Hee Kil: So but that's really typical for them to wear change wings in very fast speed. So one department is very happy. The other department is suffering from us. That's right. Yeah. I always love asking that question because I think it's really interesting. I know most engineers prefer the booms. But I never got a chance to work with it a lot, other than this kind of concerts or like workshops.

[21:03] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah. I've gotten a little bit better at convincing directors to go for it most of the time, but not always. The trick is a one-ear rig, I think. The double ones definitely hold the mic better, but they do get stuck in the wig cap. They get stuck in the wig transitions. A lot of engineers started making their own ear rigging system now.

[21:25] Sun Hee Kil: Yes. What's some of the most interesting technical challenges you've experienced working in sound on and off Broadway? Hmm. For me, the challenging for me is I told you, I have to read sound engineering books in my second language. It's already really incredibly hard. And then the English difference is PTV and demanders from European companies, Japanese companies, American companies, and British companies.

[22:00] Sun Hee Kil: They're all different. Wow, yeah. The translations. Well, and then it's fair to say also that every single console names things whatever they want. There's not a universal language for DCAs, VCAs, control groups, etc. Every single console has its own terminology and its own layout.

[22:22] Sun Hee Kil: They have so many different connectors too. So if you go to lighting, they only have like three pins. Stage AP, PMX, XLR, like Theta Cable. They only have like four or five different things, but sound. How many different connectors and cables exist? So many. Somebody has to combine all of this plays. And some software also only works on Windows, some software only works on Mac.

[22:55] Sun Hee Kil: That's right. Also, all the consoles have their own firmware, so sometimes your USBs don't work on this one. They work on that one. Oh yeah, yeah. Save your USB format. You have to reformat. Or even within the same world. I was in a theater where we were using all Alan and Heath stuff, but we upgraded one piece of the board, had a whole new firmware, couldn't use our show files from the previous thing, even though it was all the same brand.

[23:18] Sun Hee Kil: Oh yes. Speaking of that, I had a tour to Japan, and then I communicated, but there were like two translators between, right? Oh wow. Like telephone. Yeah, yeah, because it had Japanese engineers, the supervisor of the theater doesn't speak English. And then there was like production manager, me, and their production manager, translator, all that.

[23:43] Sun Hee Kil: Wow. I mean, if I could just talk to that person, it would be done in five minutes. Right. The five people talk through the sound engineers. So I programmed the whole show. It was a musical. We had like a couple of days of setup. And also with the KPUB stars. I wanted to be very prepared. Yeah, big pressure. When I went there, the palmware they have is behind my software.

[24:08] Sun Hee Kil: So I couldn't even open. Oh right. So I was upgrading consoles there. Fitting curing the load. Waiting for the firmware to load. Okay, I can't do anything. That's so stressful. And then one of my friends have a MyDesk console in South Korea. They wanted to update, but they cannot speak English. But the engineers in Colorado.

[24:33] Sun Hee Kil: So we did a Zoom core group Zoom core before pandemic. Wow. So I was translating between two. And they were updating. Well then you speak key from here to there. Wow, that's incredible. Because that's kind of like you said, it's like you're translating languages, English to Korean and vice versa, but you're also translating the audio, the language of audio.

[24:54] Sun Hee Kil: It's already really hard. It's already very difficult because it's a bunch of weird made-up stuff and it doesn't always match from console to console, from place to place. You can see all this my tears on the menu, because I sleep with I don't get this page. Speaking of consoles, do you have any favorites?

[25:17] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, I like Digico. Digico. The sound and the T shop to wear is crazy good to program. If you design and mix a lot of musicals, it's artificial intelligence. It works like analog, but if you want to change it something in two seconds, you can change it. Yeah, the aliasing, the aliasing, the pla selecting players, that's so helpful.

[25:41] Sun Hee Kil: That also saves a lot of A1's life. Otherwise to copy this one of this too. Right, copy and paste it into a hundred scenes. So nice. Yeah, Digico was good. What was it like when you were working on the Olympics? I would love to know what kind of a system that was, like between what sort of a setup was it live? Were you in an arena? Were you around multiple venues? What was that like?

[26:09] Sun Hee Kil: So I told you like when I started my sound engineering career, I followed a very famous sound designer, right? He became the sound designer for the ceremony. Because he did Ajayan games before. Asian games are similar to Olympics, but only in the Asian continents and then he wanted me to be his associate so I was associated sound designer then I figured out the systems for the ceremonies we had a 35,000 outside the stadium was outdoor stadium and then at that time my president of South Korea had some money laundering issue with all these Olympic things.

[26:57] Sun Hee Kil: So we didn't have enough of budget to close the lid. It was very expensive. Is it 35 million or something? To close the lid so we gave up but that city was for drying fish when we didn't have refrigerator. So the wind the most windy city and cord is the city in South Korea.

[27:23] Sun Hee Kil: Oh wow wind is terrible sound so that town is famous for drying fish dry fish very funny throughout the year dry fish in the air freezing and the windy it's like being inside of a blast chiller I was very upset and then I was also praying that whoever put the Olympics here should come here and then clean up this stadium every single day and I was praying they should be imprisoned in the stadium for life.

[27:56] Sun Hee Kil: So but it was a little different from the theater sound design process.

[28:02] Sarah Goodman: I'm sure.

[28:03] Sun Hee Kil: So Caban Mont knew, right? Eight years something 10 years before the show was on. A lot of planning.

[28:10] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, yeah.

[28:11] Sun Hee Kil: And then you also have to have some kind of um performance four years before. So you already have all this creative team in the designer, not designer side, at least the director, producers, right?

[28:26] Sun Hee Kil: The producers Capamant and IOC. Production management team, they all have some kind of a plan to do the ceremonies. Even four years, because you have to perform in closing ceremony in the previous Olympics.

[28:41] Sarah Goodman: So wow right so to kind of show that advertisement.

[28:47] Sun Hee Kil: So those team, the very creative team were already assembled even before four years, or maybe like six years before our Olympics. And then about four years before they already had a bidding system for system.

[29:04] Sun Hee Kil: So a lot of companies in South Korea put the beat to the Caban Mont. And then they selected this sound equipment company already and then hired the designers after.

[29:18] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[29:19] Sun Hee Kil: Mm-hmm. So we didn't get to choose things and then oh wow. And then Caban hired the theater des director for our ceremonies.

[29:29] Sun Hee Kil: So the people the this director worked with theater designers. So we are not concert big event mega events people. Most of us were theater people doing musicals and theater.

[29:42] Sarah Goodman: Uh-huh so we went there and then we worked with this concert big event rental companies, not just us, like projection, all the lightings, everybody but okay there's a big gap to talk about the arts, performing arts.

[29:58] Sun Hee Kil: Because yeah, right. Their version of arts is different from our version of arts.

[30:05] Sarah Goodman: Right.

[30:05] Sun Hee Kil: Like more commercial. Like probably like big pop concerts and things like that.

[30:10] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[30:10] Sun Hee Kil: So first design sound designer got appointed, create couldn't handle the stress with this beating the wow.

[30:18] Sun Hee Kil: Winner sound rental company. So yeah.

[30:21] Sun Hee Kil: He left two years before the ceremony. And then my designer got hired after he also suffered. I wish they don't listen to this. I'm and they don't speak English anyway.

[30:33] Sun Hee Kil: So I think I can talk about this all the time. It'll be okay. I'm not very famous or anything.

[30:40] Sun Hee Kil: He hired the first associate sound designer and then the system he made didn't do well. So they had a presentation to Olympic broadcasting. And then they didn't like it.

[30:54] Sun Hee Kil: But somehow this guy quit so my sound designer called me so I have it in this situation we are a year and a half away but I need also a sound designer. I need somebody to build a system and communicate with them.

[31:11] Sun Hee Kil: I know you studied a lot and at this point can you can you handle this? And he showed me all the rendering they have been working on so for me I was very afraid but I had to say yes that's not the chance you can get in your library.

[31:29] Sun Hee Kil: No I mean the Olympics is like literally the world stage.

[31:33] Sarah Goodman: Yeah it's the biggest it can get, right?

[31:35] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah. I mean, I my career can be done after this if I screw it, but also be lifted up after and then no matter what, this is coolest thing I've ever heard in my life.

[31:47] Sarah Goodman: So cool.

[31:49] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah. So I I got the job at and then Pang Chong Olympic, Winter Olympics, two broadcasting companies came to broadcast.

[31:59] Sun Hee Kil: So one was Olympic Broadcasting System based in Madrid, Spain. The other company was MBC Sports, United States.

[32:08] Sun Hee Kil: So those two companies came to South Korea, set up all the cameras and audios, and then they sell this one to other countries.

[32:19] Sun Hee Kil: So some countries buy this thing from the Olympics. OBS, yeah, some other buying from MBC MBC Sports.

[32:27] Sarah Goodman: Okay.

[32:28] Sun Hee Kil: And MBC Sports also took over three hotels in Pyongyang. Because very many crew members came.

[32:35] Sarah Goodman: But a lot of people.

[32:36] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah. I mean, 'cause they do all the sports, smaller sports, and like they put how many microphones and cameras for one sports.

[32:46] Sun Hee Kil: So yeah, just very many people. But for the ceremonies, OBS just came in and the MBC sports just bought the what OBS was making.

[32:57] Sun Hee Kil: So it's just the one company.

[32:59] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, one company I I need easy to deal with.

[33:02] Sun Hee Kil: So then I had to make the presentation because the first sound design they presented, they didn't like it.

[33:09] Sun Hee Kil: So I had to fly to South Korea for a day and a half. It takes like 14 hours just on the plane.

[33:16] Sarah Goodman: Oh my god.

[33:16] Sun Hee Kil: But I had to go home. Crazy thing was at that time. My parents were beating me here in New York.

[33:23] Sarah Goodman: So they were thinking and you had to leave?

[33:25] Sun Hee Kil: I couldn't go 'cause they cannot speak English. Like I Oh my god.

[33:29] Sun Hee Kil: They're old too. But I how can they move around without me so oh no I called my sister.

[33:35] Sun Hee Kil: So one of my sisters had a leave for from her company for a week and came because I picked her up and I went to South Korea.

[33:46] Sun Hee Kil: I stayed in her place. She was here.

[33:48] Sarah Goodman: You swap yes had to swap houses.

[33:51] Sun Hee Kil: So crazy that's really funny.

[33:53] Sun Hee Kil: So and then I presented but but for doing that I stayed up whole month to fill out the system.

[34:01] Sun Hee Kil: So the condition was I had to have a system redundant system.

[34:07] Sun Hee Kil: Double or triple redundant wow and then at the same time I had to have a complete analog system if all the digital fails because it completely fails.

[34:17] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[34:17] Sun Hee Kil: So I had to have analog system going to OBS.

[34:20] Wow.

[34:21] Sun Hee Kil: So as you know we work in theater if something fails you know microphone or if come microphone even fails the stage manager comes out on stage like we are so sorry.

[34:30] Sun Hee Kil: We have to hold it holding you can't really hold the Olympics can you I cannot do that.

[34:36] Sun Hee Kil: So there's no holding at the Olympics OBS told me that you had to have a system running redundant or trip redundant.

[34:46] Sun Hee Kil: And if everything fails we still have to have analog system to get the microphone feed from you.

[34:52] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[34:53] Sun Hee Kil: And the music feed from you so we can air things that's a lot of gear.

[34:59] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah after very many triers. I kinda had a plan.

[35:03] Sun Hee Kil: So I flew to South Korea. Because everybody flew. It was very secret.

[35:08] Sun Hee Kil: So we couldn't do any Zoom.

[35:10] Sarah Goodman: Wow, you had to do it all in person.

[35:11] Sun Hee Kil: So people from South Korea were there.

[35:15] Sun Hee Kil: I flew there, and OBS, like three people from Madrid came in, saw South Korea.

[35:21] Sun Hee Kil: We had a closed room.

[35:23] Sun Hee Kil: Wow.

[35:24] Sun Hee Kil: And I had to present in front of them. And then 15 minutes after he said, Yeah, let's do this.

[35:30] Sarah Goodman: That's awesome.

[35:31] Sun Hee Kil: So you nailed it.

[35:32] Sun Hee Kil: You did it.

[35:33] Sun Hee Kil: That's just me or my friends and my upper classmates.

[35:37] Sarah Goodman: I appreciate all of them.

[35:39] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[35:39] Sarah Goodman: That's so awesome.

[35:40] Sun Hee Kil: And then when you actually did the ceremony, how did it how did it all go?

[35:44] Sun Hee Kil: So yeah, and then um the ceremony was February 2018, but the cables had to go from September of 2017.

[35:56] Sun Hee Kil: Wow.

[35:57] Sun Hee Kil: Because you have to have a lot of like single mode fiber cables already ran underground.

[36:04] Sun Hee Kil: Wow.

[36:04] Sun Hee Kil: So what's happening is you make the system for ceremonies, right? And at the same time, you send the signal from the stadium control booth to the broadcasting trucks, which is part like um half mile from the stadium.

[36:20] Sarah Goodman: Wow, right.

[36:20] Sun Hee Kil: That's far.

[36:21] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[36:23] Sun Hee Kil: I I felt like it's a half mile at least. Because it was very cold to get there.

[36:28] Sun Hee Kil: So the OBS was containers are parking there.

[36:33] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah. And then from there, they sent signaler to IBC, which is three miles away, international broadcasting center.

[36:41] Sun Hee Kil: So from the stadium to the IBC, I think they used uh either Korean KT, like Verizon Wireless ATT, like Koreans, um, those um providers for internet cables because already installed those underground, but from the stadium control booth, which is fifth floor of this to you, and to that parking lot to the broadcasting, we had to send the signals.

[37:08] Sun Hee Kil: So those cables had to be installed so far in advance because you cannot run the those many cables outside.

[37:16] Sun Hee Kil: I mean, and we ended up with run a lot of cables.

[37:19] Sun Hee Kil: The broadcasting ran millions of fiber cables.

[37:22] Sun Hee Kil: Wow.

[37:23] Sun Hee Kil: Videos?

[37:24] Sun Hee Kil: Um audio is nothing.

[37:25] Sun Hee Kil: The PDO cables I've seen, it's like Medusa has a hairline everywhere on with them.

[37:32] Sun Hee Kil: So all the cabling had to be done before.

[37:36] Sun Hee Kil: I think from December, the speakers and all of those gears just started coming in to the control booth.

[37:43] Sun Hee Kil: It's about three months ahead.

[37:46] Sun Hee Kil: And then me too.

[37:48] Sun Hee Kil: I flew to South Korea in December.

[37:51] Sun Hee Kil: And then we started going to the stadium, which is in Pyongshang, like two, three hours from Saul.

[37:57] Sun Hee Kil: And all the performers were in Saoul, because it's our capital city.

[38:03] Sun Hee Kil: And then the biggest conference center taped whole two conference rooms exactly the same size as the stadium.

[38:13] Sun Hee Kil: So one was for opening ceremonies, the other one is for closing ceremonies.

[38:17] Sarah Goodman: Oh wow.

[38:18] Sun Hee Kil: A lot of times you have sports games in the stadium after opening, so you cannot rehearse closing ceremonies.

[38:26] Sun Hee Kil: So you have to use everything in advance, right? Before ceremonies.

[38:30] Sarah Goodman: Oh, that's crazy.

[38:32] Sun Hee Kil: And then we had a scaffolding tower, like about like three stories height.

[38:38] Sun Hee Kil: That your director and the choreographer go there with handed microphones.

[38:42] Sarah Goodman: Oh my gosh.

[38:43] Sun Hee Kil: And every actor has the numbers.

[38:46] Sun Hee Kil: They just call I mean you cannot have 500 people are performing.

[38:51] Sun Hee Kil: Your choreographer has to find that person.

[38:53] Sun Hee Kil: Like number 123. Move to your left.

[39:00] Sun Hee Kil: Like cannot identify who's who.

[39:03] Sun Hee Kil: So they all have numbers.

[39:06] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[39:06] Sun Hee Kil: Oh my gosh.

[39:07] Sun Hee Kil: And then we videotaped every day, and then the director and choreographer, music director analyzed every day.

[39:13] Sun Hee Kil: We had four composers.

[39:15] Sarah Goodman: Wow.

[39:16] Sun Hee Kil: And then so the broadcasting also had a format has to be at 48 kilohertz, like 24 bit, like how many channels you have to have, right?

[39:26] Sun Hee Kil: So there also L UFS because it's broadcasting.

[39:30] Sun Hee Kil: So they have all this um concentrate of the sound.

[39:35] Sun Hee Kil: So we hired one person just monitoring this because four composers were using four different recording studios.

[39:42] Sun Hee Kil: Oh my gosh.

[39:46] Sun Hee Kil: Right.

[39:46] Sun Hee Kil: So the blue house also had to send us everything in that format.

[39:51] Sun Hee Kil: So one person all the playback and all of that stuff, yeah.

[39:54] Sun Hee Kil: And the closing ceremonies especially.

[39:56] Sun Hee Kil: You don't could we have to have a ceremonies of cross cris cross countries in the closure ceremonies.

[40:02] Sun Hee Kil: So you also have to deal with national anthem of that country, but you don't know who's gonna win.

[40:08] Sun Hee Kil: So this person has to listen to every country's national anthem in that format 5.1 and stereo channel.

[40:15] Sun Hee Kil: And then we kinda knew who's gonna win, but you don't know who's gonna win.

[40:19] Sun Hee Kil: You don't know for sure.

[40:21] Sun Hee Kil: Well, that all of those attendees, but you don't know the exact who's gonna win.

[40:25] Sun Hee Kil: So you have of course you have to be prepared.

[40:28] Sarah Goodman: That's amazing so that's a lot of file management yeah and then we were like we wanted to help make sure I mean he labeled also but all of us not speaking English very well and then we kinda labeled all of them who's gonna win who's gonna IOCs also two people were in the second floor monitoring everything and the improved dust.

[40:49] Sun Hee Kil: That was very crazy moment.

[40:52] Sun Hee Kil: So now I think about it like if he make the mistakes of playing on other countries and they should end them or something.

[40:58] Sun Hee Kil: That could be devastating.

[40:59] Sun Hee Kil: They could create a political issues between absolutely 100%.

[41:03] Sun Hee Kil: You could be sparking some kind of crazy conflict.

[41:06] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, we were scared every single moment at the time.

[41:09] Sun Hee Kil: So I bet.

[41:10] Sun Hee Kil: So that three up almost two and three months we were there going back and forth, and then when we started rehearsing in the stadium from a month ago, our schedule was 9 a.m. to 3 a.m.

[41:25] Sarah Goodman: What?

[41:28] Sun Hee Kil: So we had two we had two ships for sound engineering team.

[41:33] Sun Hee Kil: We had 50 crew members.

[41:35] Sarah Goodman: Wow, 50.

[41:37] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, five zero.

[41:39] Sarah Goodman: That's a lot.

[41:40] Sun Hee Kil: We had sound designer and me in the design team.

[41:44] Sun Hee Kil: And the person who's overseeing all those fires whether they are in the right format, right?

[41:49] Sarah Goodman: Mm-hmm.

[41:50] Sun Hee Kil: Like your playback engineer.

[41:51] Sun Hee Kil: Oh no, they're they we have two other playback engineers.

[41:55] Sarah Goodman: Okay.

[41:55] Sun Hee Kil: So that person I talked about is just screening files.

[41:59] Sun Hee Kil: Just screening the files.

[42:00] Sarah Goodman: Wow.

[42:01] Sun Hee Kil: They're playable on that.

[42:04] Sun Hee Kil: And then other people or this from the rental company engineers.

[42:09] Sun Hee Kil: So they had two shipped.

[42:11] Sun Hee Kil: So they come at 7 a.m. count on all the system.

[42:15] Sun Hee Kil: They're prepared.

[42:17] Sun Hee Kil: So crazy thing is we didn't have a loop.

[42:20] Sun Hee Kil: In means lighting and projection have nothing to do until after sunset.

[42:26] Sarah Goodman: Oh, sure.

[42:27] Sun Hee Kil: So their core time is 5 p.m.

[42:29] Sarah Goodman: Oh my god.

[42:30] Sun Hee Kil: But all these 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. we're getting there all day.

[42:33] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, because choreographers are doing space and then all the time.

[42:38] Sun Hee Kil: So we just have to turn them up and then prepared for next one problem here.

[42:43] Sarah Goodman: Oh my gosh, that's wild.

[42:45] Sun Hee Kil: Among those 50 sound crew members, I was the only person can speak English.

[42:50] Sarah Goodman: Wow.

[42:51] Sun Hee Kil: So I was making that look put a lot of pressure on you.

[42:54] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[42:54] Sun Hee Kil: And then actual ceremonies, I was the core center.

[42:58] Sun Hee Kil: So I checked with all these departments, right?

[43:01] Sun Hee Kil: So fireworks, media center, lighting team lighting for like kel drone lighting for stairs.

[43:08] Sun Hee Kil: There were so many drones, all kinds.

[43:11] Sun Hee Kil: They were all communicated from me because we sent the time code to everybody.

[43:16] Sun Hee Kil: So I had to talk to the org or this video.

[43:18] Sun Hee Kil: Are you ready?

[43:19] Sun Hee Kil: Are ready?

[43:19] Sun Hee Kil: You good?

[43:20] Sun Hee Kil: You good?

[43:20] Sun Hee Kil: You good?

[43:21] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[43:22] Sarah Goodman: Oh my gosh, that's a lot.

[43:23] Sun Hee Kil: Core center.

[43:25] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[43:26] Sun Hee Kil: And that's so hard to do.

[43:27] Sun Hee Kil: Like being on headset is really difficult when you're working audio because you're trying to listen to what's happening.

[43:32] Sun Hee Kil: Oh, yeah.

[43:32] Sun Hee Kil: And you're also talking and trying to listen.

[43:34] Sun Hee Kil: It's really the sound quality was not my issue.

[43:37] Sun Hee Kil: I just wanted to make sure this place, not stopping, but like for the broadcasting.

[43:43] Sun Hee Kil: I'm sure the broadcasting engineer mastered a lot of good sound equipment there, but stadium was very cold.

[43:51] Sun Hee Kil: The all the audience members had like foodie with the old discs and mopplers and then hats over.

[43:58] Sun Hee Kil: Who's gonna listen to the sound?

[44:00] Sun Hee Kil: As long as it makes sound, it's good.

[44:03] Sun Hee Kil: If the sound is happening, yeah, we did it.

[44:05] Sun Hee Kil: For me, like it continues, the music played from the beginning to the end.

[44:10] Sun Hee Kil: I'm good.

[44:10] Sarah Goodman: Well my gosh.

[44:12] Sarah Goodman: Well, what an accomplishment.

[44:14] Sarah Goodman: That's that sounds like a really stressful job.

[44:16] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, but I cannot trade this experience to anything else.

[44:24] Sun Hee Kil: It was so crazy.

[44:26] Sun Hee Kil: Also because so after I got back from Olympic ceremonies, I gave out all this presentation.

[44:32] Sun Hee Kil: What I have done from the Olympic sound design.

[44:36] Sun Hee Kil: So I went to like six different conferences to present.

[44:39] Sarah Goodman: Oh wow.

[44:41] Sun Hee Kil: And then one well, I think TSDCA conference.

[44:45] Sun Hee Kil: I presented about Olympic sound design.

[44:48] Sun Hee Kil: When I finished my presentation, of course, there's a break, right?

[44:52] Sun Hee Kil: We all go to the bathroom and the drink coffee.

[44:55] Sun Hee Kil: Then two Broadway sound designers came to me.

[44:59] Sun Hee Kil: So you want to be my associate.

[45:01] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[45:02] Sun Hee Kil: That's how I started my Broadway career.

[45:04] Sarah Goodman: Oh my god, that's amazing.

[45:05] Sun Hee Kil: So it took you right there.

[45:07] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[45:07] Sun Hee Kil: To theater.

[45:08] Sarah Goodman: That's that's so cool.

[45:10] Sun Hee Kil: Yep.

[45:10] Sun Hee Kil: That's how I started here.

[45:13] Sarah Goodman: What has your experience been working on Broadway so far?

[45:16] Sarah Goodman: And um, I would love to hear what you think about the gender gap on Broadway with designers.

[45:23] Sarah Goodman: There are so few women designers on Broadway right now.

[45:28] Sarah Goodman: I'd love to hear your thoughts on that and you just your personal experience of what it's been like working on Broadway.

[45:34] Sun Hee Kil: So I did like six associates on Broadway.

[45:38] Sun Hee Kil: But I have a little different opinions than you because I'm still having this culture and language differences.

[45:47] Sun Hee Kil: I came here when I was 30 years old.

[45:50] Sun Hee Kil: So I hated the sexism in South Korea.

[45:56] Sun Hee Kil: I couldn't ever reach to the top because all these management jobs are for male.

[46:03] Sun Hee Kil: In here, I also hit other minority issues like being Asian woman and all kinds.

[46:18] Sun Hee Kil: Because the culture and language issue could be the big biggest issue for me to design a show contains a lot of cultures had to share.

[46:27] Sun Hee Kil: So I have different opinions of that.

[46:29] Sun Hee Kil: But I worked with a lot of sound engineers, female sound engineers in this country.

[46:35] Sun Hee Kil: And they are very capable of designing sound on Broadway, I believe.

[46:41] Sun Hee Kil: I worked with very many good engineers, and then I think the same issue of the management, have a trust issue.

[46:49] Sarah Goodman: Yes.

[46:50] Sun Hee Kil: With women.

[46:51] Sun Hee Kil: And then you know, we are nice.

[46:52] Sun Hee Kil: We don't want to fight or we don't want to argue with people.

[46:58] Sun Hee Kil: So something happening, and then we wanna also make sure I don't want we don't you don't know be we don't want to be assertive of things cannot be 100% also sure.

[47:08] Sun Hee Kil: So we say, yeah, let's see.

[47:11] Sun Hee Kil: But maybe from producer's view or director's view, they cannot trust us 100%.

[47:17] Sun Hee Kil: They think like that's not sure because male designers scream at them like we want to do this way.

[47:23] Sun Hee Kil: And they still get hired.

[47:24] Sarah Goodman: Yes.

[47:25] Sun Hee Kil: That's another thing.

[47:27] Sun Hee Kil: And I teach at college almost 18 years now.

[47:31] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[47:31] Sun Hee Kil: You see a lot of boys students.

[47:33] Sun Hee Kil: I don't want to be sexist, but this is it's just the demographics.

[47:37] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[47:37] Sun Hee Kil: There's very few women in the field at all, just in general.

[47:41] Sun Hee Kil: It's my boy students.

[47:42] Sun Hee Kil: They just plug in, makes a sound, a lot of sonic boom sparks, and I I had to plug my ear.

[47:48] Sun Hee Kil: Let's unplug this tonight up first.

[47:51] Sun Hee Kil: Can you wait to step by step?

[47:53] Sun Hee Kil: But those boys students are not afraid of making mistakes.

[47:57] Sun Hee Kil: They say, I'm sorry, this is cool, why not?

[48:00] Sun Hee Kil: But cool students, they're very timid.

[48:04] Sun Hee Kil: They're very shy to do anything.

[48:06] Sun Hee Kil: They're afraid of even making any mistakes in class or by themselves.

[48:11] Sun Hee Kil: So I told told them it's okay.

[48:14] Sun Hee Kil: I make sure we don't have a fire.

[48:16] Sun Hee Kil: Yes.

[48:17] Sun Hee Kil: I make sure people you plug in, I will plug your hands so you don't die from electric shot.

[48:22] Sun Hee Kil: What do you want to do?

[48:24] Sun Hee Kil: They don't know.

[48:26] Sun Hee Kil: I think it's difference between the gender differences.

[48:31] Sun Hee Kil: So that that may be transferring to the business when we go out to the professional world.

[48:39] Sun Hee Kil: So still a lot of boys students are very assertive about what they believe, even though they can be wrong.

[48:46] Sun Hee Kil: But core students strong and wrong.

[48:48] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[48:49] Sun Hee Kil: I know.

[48:50] Sun Hee Kil: The core students are like, I am not sure, and I don't want to make the mistake.

[48:50] Sun Hee Kil: I don't want to make this production fails because of me.

[48:59] Sun Hee Kil: So it's just very care and warm, but that may create the problem.

[49:05] Sarah Goodman: Maybe cause a bit of a barrier there.

[49:07] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[49:08] Sun Hee Kil: But for for me, a lot of times when I introduce myself to new directors or producers, they don't know me.

[49:16] Sun Hee Kil: And they cannot trust me.

[49:19] Sun Hee Kil: I don't know.

[49:19] Sun Hee Kil: Maybe because of my accent or the vocabularies or the look I have.

[49:27] Sun Hee Kil: So it's hard for me to establish the trust between these people who can hire me and me.

[49:34] Sun Hee Kil: But after that, if I did a good job and then goes for a long, long.

[49:39] Sarah Goodman: What do you think, Sarah?

[49:41] Sarah Goodman: I think you're right.

[49:41] Sarah Goodman: I think it's a lot about the like you said, the the managers, the gatekeepers, the people in charge are still mostly men.

[49:49] Sarah Goodman: And I think they feel more comfortable with other men.

[49:52] Sarah Goodman: I think they feel like you said, that assertive nature is more familiar to them.

[49:59] Sarah Goodman: Um there's more of a tendency to have a strict hierarchy and less of a collaborative effort.

[50:08] Sarah Goodman: Um at least I've noticed in the the rooms that have been led by women, women directors or other women creatives in charge, there's often more of a collaborative approach as opposed to saying I'm telling you what to do, and then you're gonna tell him what to do.

[50:26] Sarah Goodman: You know, it's sort of like what are we all gonna do here?

[50:30] Sun Hee Kil: And so I think sometimes that can feel threatening to men um when when people come in with a more collaborative approach or with a more open approach.

[50:38] Sarah Goodman: I mean, that's why we are doing the theater together.

[50:42] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[50:43] Sarah Goodman: It's very competing then.

[50:46] Sun Hee Kil: I know.

[50:46] Sun Hee Kil: Well, there's a lot of those kinds of sort of contradictions in theater.

[50:50] Sarah Goodman: I think especially when you get to commercial theater where the money starts to become such a big factor.

[50:54] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[50:55] Sarah Goodman: And um, I've noticed on Broadway with designers, it seems like the same people just keep coming back and coming back and coming back.

[51:03] Sarah Goodman: And um they don't want to take a chance on someone new.

[51:09] Sun Hee Kil: But I see a lot of young assistant associates out of the designers on Broadway now.

[51:15] Sarah Goodman: So let's hope for the best for the future.

[51:18] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[51:19] Sun Hee Kil: I think things are changing.

[51:20] Sarah Goodman: Yeah, just very slowly.

[51:21] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, very slowly.

[51:23] Sun Hee Kil: There are very many A1s now.

[51:25] Sun Hee Kil: So there are.

[51:25] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, we are not in the management like the designer who's taking the responsibility to the face of us yet.

[51:32] Sarah Goodman: Mm-hmm.

[51:33] Sun Hee Kil: Mm-hmm.

[51:33] Sun Hee Kil: But if you keep believing it, working hard, they happen.

[51:38] Sun Hee Kil: It's your lifetime.

[51:40] Sarah Goodman: That's right.

[51:40] Sarah Goodman: We have to keep trying.

[51:41] Sun Hee Kil: We gotta keep going for it.

[51:43] Sarah Goodman: I wanna ask you as one of our final questions.

[51:49] Sarah Goodman: What do you think is important about theater right now?

[51:53] Sun Hee Kil: Wow, that's a very deep philosophical question.

[51:58] Sun Hee Kil: I wanna say I mean society is very sad, right?

[52:04] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, we're messed up.

[52:05] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah, something can entertain, like not entertain in like two console people and make their life a little better.

[52:17] Sun Hee Kil: Because when you see good shows, right, you feel better.

[52:20] Sarah Goodman: You do.

[52:21] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[52:22] Sun Hee Kil: And then somehow we can also reach out to people who don't have money.

[52:28] Sun Hee Kil: So they can come and watch the show somehow.

[52:32] Sarah Goodman: Mm-hmm.

[52:33] Sun Hee Kil: But a lot of people cannot afford the tickets.

[52:36] Sun Hee Kil: They are very tired when they go home.

[52:38] Sun Hee Kil: They just want to sleep.

[52:40] Sarah Goodman: So yeah, yeah.

[52:42] Sun Hee Kil: Especially the Broadway shows have gotten very expensive.

[52:46] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[52:47] Sun Hee Kil: The ticket prices have gotten pretty outrageous for a lot of shows.

[52:50] Sun Hee Kil: Two ISO Westend.

[52:52] Sun Hee Kil: So it it's difficult.

[52:53] Sun Hee Kil: But I think you're right.

[52:54] Sun Hee Kil: Connecting people with other stories, making people feel seen, making people feel happy or comforted.

[53:01] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[53:02] Sun Hee Kil: Exactly.

[53:02] Sun Hee Kil: Comfort.

[53:03] Sun Hee Kil: Exactly catharsis.

[53:04] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[53:05] Sun Hee Kil: I think that's our function, what we have to do.

[53:09] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[53:10] Sarah Goodman: Well, I really appreciate your time today.

[53:12] Sarah Goodman: Can you tell my listeners where they can follow you or what projects you have coming up?

[53:17] Sun Hee Kil: Oh, yeah.

[53:18] Sun Hee Kil: I'm doing a new play.

[53:21] Sun Hee Kil: I have to design the whole content.

[53:23] Sun Hee Kil: It's very stressful.

[53:24] Sun Hee Kil: Oh.

[53:26] Sun Hee Kil: But it's a new play with uh amazing director and the playwright.

[53:32] Sun Hee Kil: So and then after that I have a fun musical called The Wonderful Town at New York City Center.

[53:39] Sarah Goodman: Oh, I love that show.

[53:40] Sarah Goodman: That was the first Broadway show I ever saw.

[53:42] Sun Hee Kil: Oh really?

[53:42] Sarah Goodman: Yes.

[53:43] Sun Hee Kil: Ah, yeah.

[53:44] Sun Hee Kil: I'll have to come check it out.

[53:46] Sun Hee Kil: Yeah.

[53:46] Sun Hee Kil: So please, please come.

[53:48] Sun Hee Kil: And then go into the little island after and other shows.

[53:51] Sun Hee Kil: So but that's it.

[53:53] Sarah Goodman: Amazing.

[53:54] Sarah Goodman: Yeah.

[53:55] Sarah Goodman: I'll have to link your website so that my listeners can check you out.

[53:58] Sun Hee Kil: Please.

[53:59] Sun Hee Kil: Sonny Kil, thank you so much for being here today.

[54:02] Sun Hee Kil: Thank you so much for your patience to listen to my story.

[54:05] Sarah Goodman: Oh, I loved it.

[54:06] Sarah Goodman: It was fascinating.

[54:08] Sun Hee Kil: Anytime.

[54:10] Sarah Goodman: That's all for this episode of Good Show.

[54:12] Sarah Goodman: Thank you for joining me and my conversation with Sun Hee Kil.

[54:16] Sarah Goodman: Next time we are going to be hearing from another fabulous woman sound designer, Joanna Lynn Staub.

[54:22] Sarah Goodman: And the following week we will be hearing from my boss and one of my favorite engineers I've ever worked with, Amanda Raymond from 54 Below.

[54:30] Sarah Goodman: I'm going to continue my Women in Sound series beyond March because women and sound are very important and we need to put the spotlight on them.

[54:38] Sarah Goodman: Later in the month, I'll be featuring an episode with the video designers from Sunset Boulevard, one of my favorite shows from this season.

[54:46] Sarah Goodman: That's Joe Ransom and Nathan Amsey.

[54:49] Sarah Goodman: Now, they're not women, but I still respect their work.

[54:51] Sarah Goodman: So check that out.

[54:52] Sarah Goodman: Make sure that you subscribe to this podcast, Good Show, with Sarah Goodman.

[54:57] Sarah Goodman: Also follow me on Instagram and TikTok at Good Show Podcast.

[55:01] Sarah Goodman: This podcast is a proud member of the Broadway Podcast Network.

[55:05] Sarah Goodman: Check us out at bpn.fm slash good show.

[55:08] Sarah Goodman: All right, thanks a lot.

[55:09] Sarah Goodman: I'm Sarah Goodman, and this is Good Show.

[55:12] Sarah Goodman: Goodbye.