{Sam Kusnetz}

Department: Sound

Position/Title: Production Sound Engineer
Hometown: New York City. Lower west side.

What do you love and/or miss about your hometown?
Being able to get good food at any time of the day…

When you were young what did you want to be when you grew up?
A scientist. I don’t think I really knew what “scientist” meant, but I thought it sounded intriguing.

Favorite part of your job:
Scientist? Or my real job? Really, there are two favorite parts of my job. The first favorite part is the secret satisfaction of knowing that if I do my job really well, nobody will notice. The second favorite part only comes with musicals, and that is the enjoyment of having an unspoken dialogue with the actors every night as I mix the show.

Hobbies?
You mean other than more theatre, right? I’m a musician, and I enjoy writing and recording music.

Pet?
Two pets. My dog is named Obie, and he’s a two year old Chinook. My cat is Abeeza, and in his mind, he’s a giant jungle leopard. But actually he’s just a regular cat.

What was your first job?
When I was fifteen I was the lighting and sound operator for an off-off-broadway show in some tiny venue in midtown. I was paid fifty bucks for two weeks of work and I thought it was the best thing ever.

What was the last book you read? Movie? Play?
Not long ago I finally finished the Baroque Cycle by Neil Stephenson, of whom I am I gigantic fan. The best movie I saw recently was Wall-e.

What is something most people don’t know about you?
My favorite color is blue.

What sets PCS apart from other places you have worked?
It’s the best of both worlds here… we’re the big institutional theatre in town, so we do great old standards like Guys & Dolls and Importance of Being Earnest, but we also do very new, different shows like Apollo and How To Disappear… I’ve never worked anywhere that really shoots for both ends of the spectrum like that.

Who is one of your biggest inspirations and why?
Richard Feynman, the physicist who cracked the mystery of the Challenger accident with the famous O-ring experiment. Despite being among the most brilliant minds of his generation, he always claimed that he was just lucky to understand physics really well. And he always assumed that anyone he was talking to understood something else at least as well. Reading his stuff has always inspired me to be as good as I can in my field, and to embrace being a rank novice in other fields. He was perpetual student and a masterful teacher all at once.

What is something you are absolutely passionate about?
Well, that’s my lovely wife Kerry, of course!
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