Tell Me A Story #11: Sydney Little

by Isabella Pham

“Tell Me a Story” is a series spotlighting individuals on the York College campus as well as in the wider community of York. They tell a story that’s unique to them — we publish it so that you can get a glimpse of their lives. Each piece includes an unedited transcription of their response.

“Well I guess this is… maybe not the best memory that I’ve had but it’s — yeah, it’s a memory. It’s definitely a memory. And I won’t forget it. So, I was in… it was my junior year of high school and I was doing the sound for The Little Mermaid. I was the only one who was doing the sound, and I was in charge of probably almost twenty mics by myself. And at one point during the show, right before, like, of course the biggest number, the most recognizable number that everybody knew which was Under the Sea, there was something that went off; it was called the oscillator. And at the time, I didn’t know what it was. And it pretty much… it sounds exactly like when they bleep out bad words on TV. And it’s just like — it sounds exactly like that but extended and it doesn’t stop. And it just keeps going and going and going.

“And so the purpose of it is to test out the sound systems and you can test out exactly, like, where the sound goes through so you can test it out just on stage, or just in house, or just in the box office, or just in hallways. So, yeah. It went off during the show right before that — before Under the Sea. And like I said, it was just me in the sound booth and I had no idea what was going on and I was freaking out because this was just happening. And it wouldn’t stop. Like it was just that beeping noise. And also, like, the director and the technical director didn’t know what was happening either, so we were just all panicking. And we had to just turn down the entire board so that it would stop, ’cause there was no way it would stop.

Then they had to perform Under the Sea without any mics, and it was the most awkwardest thing ever. You could barely hear them sing, and it was just horrible. And the only reason why we figured it out, that it was the oscillator, was one of, um, it was a former student who went to my high school who went on to study sound in college. And he knew that it was the oscillator and so he, like, told us and told us how to fix it and everything like that. And…yeah. It was — it was fine for the rest of the show but it was like, the worst possible thing that could ever have happened.”

Although she has faced many obstacles, Sydney continues to pursue her love of theatre to this day. When asked about her current projects, she replied:

“I’m doing two big aspects, I guess, for Marie Antoinette, and one is being the sound designer, so that’s creating all the sound effects and things like that for the show. And we have to record some lines for a person because he’s playing a sheep. So we have to record those because it’s just like a stuffed sheep and it can’t do anything. So we have to do that. And then I’m also the scenic charge in the shop. The scenic charge is the person who’s in charge of all the scenic painting and they kind of oversee all the other scenic painters. For Marie Antoinette, the set is pretty minimal, but it’s supposed to be the Palace of Versailles’ mirrors in, like, the Grand Hall. And it’s just like a huge wall of mirrors and we’re supposed to paint them with a stencil decal that’s all fancy. It’s a lot, it’s going to be a lot ’cause we have to do like forty something of them — and they’re big.”