Sound Minds
Little Black Shadows - South Coast Repertory
"From all sides, LITTLE BLACK SHADOWS is itself "blessed" by its creative team. Aside from the visual punch provided by the projections, David M. Barber's cleverly transforming sets, Elizabeth Harper's enhancing light designs, and Sara Ryung Clement's period-faithful costumes work harmoniously to give the play its visual splendor-a great achievement in such a deceivingly small theater space. Music and sound design provided by Charles Coes and Nathan A. Roberts envelope the play in appropriate moods---from melancholy to mirth."
Published: March 24, 2018
The Strangest - The Fourth St Theatre
"Shamieh’s absurdist play is based on the nameless Arab inexplicably killed by a Frenchman in Camus’ novel The Stranger. Brilliantly directed by May Adrales, The Strangest is ferociously funny. The production is also dazzling in its style: the original music and sound design by Charles Coes and Nathan A. Roberts breathes life into the story and gives it incredible auditory dynamics. Aaron Porter’s nuanced and transformative lighting, Daniel Zimmerman’s beautiful scenic design, and Becky Bodurtha’s exquisite costumes also enhance the immersive experience."
-Theater is Easy "The Strangest Review" By Ran Xia
Published: March 22, 2017
Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Baltimore Center Stage
"Sound Designers Nathan A. Roberts and Charles Coes added the final ingredients to complete the atmosphere of 18th Century France. Their original compositions marry the courtly music style of the Ancien Régime with modern-feeling bass and percussion elements to make a soundscape that at once feels refined and classical, sexy and modern."
-DC Metro Theater Arts: "'Review: ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’ at Center Stage" by Patricia Mitchell
Published: December 5, 2016
tokyo fish story - The Old Globe
"If invisible sushi is served on a stage, does anybody taste it?
Zen ruminations aside, you might feel as though you have after seeing the Old Globe’s “tokyo fish story,” so rich in multisensory pleasures is director May Adrales’ production of the Kimber Lee play.
That’s particularly true of the inspired sound design by Charles Coes and Nathan A. Roberts. The crisp sibilance of rice being rinsed, the soothing murmur of hot water poured for tea, even the satisfying snap of unseen light switches flicked on as the morning restaurant routine begins: Somehow the sum of it begins to feel more real than if those motions were not being mimed."
-The San Diego Union-Tribune: "'fish story' spare yet immersive" by James Hebert
Published: June 3, 2016
Smokey Joe's Cafe - Theater By the Sea
"Scenic designer Cassandra Lentz gives us a West Side Story-esque, cozy street scene with the titular café in the background, the orchestra (exceptionally directed by Mike Moise) hidden behind windows that serve to create a sense of space as well as allowing sound designer Charles Coes to balance performers and orchestra with studio-like clarity. - See more at: http://motifri.com/smokeyjoe/#sthash.OKhnVc2s.7zD5nYrG.dpuf
-Motif: "Smokey Joe's is Intensely Satisfying" by Terry Shea
Published: June 17, 2015
The Tempest - South Coast Rep
(Nominated for a Los Angeles Critic's Circal Award)
"In addition to Posner and Teller, the unusual demands of this production invoke a design team that deserves special mention. It includes Daniel Conway (scenic design), Paloma Young (costumes, especially the gown worn by Miranda that is almost entirely made up of the stitching together of her old baby clothes), Christopher Akerlind (lighting), Charles Coes and Darron L West (sound), Johnny Thompson (magic design), Thom Rubino (magic engineering and construction) and Kenny Wollesen (instrument design and Wollesonics, whatever those might be).
And, oh, I must not forget to mention: there is no island setting here, just a steampunk traveling tent with a magician’s stage. The magic on it — past and prologue, Shakespearian and non — is all that is required."
-Culture Weekly : "A singular Tempest at South Coast Reperory" by Sylvie Drake
Published: September 17, 2014
Crane Story - Playwrights Realm at the Cherry Lane
"But most memorably, “Crane Story,” at the Cherry Lane Theater, is told through sound.
Japan’s mellifluous rainy season is one of the play’s stars, as is the symphonic bustle of Tokyo. Much of the score is created by actors onstage, as when they drum their fingers to signify rain. Nathan A. Roberts’s meticulous sound design holds this Playwrights Realmproduction together and keeps its passions coursing through the audience’s veins."
- NY Times Theater Review : "Crane Story" by Catherine Rampell
Published: September 20, 2011
"but a masterly design team — especially the director Katherine Kovner and the composer-sound designer Nathan A. Roberts — has managed to plug a few textual holes with pure aesthetic gratification (2:15)."
- NY Times Theater Listings: Sept. 23-- 29
Published: September 22, 2011
"The direction by Katherine Kovner is good, aided immeasurably by the clean, effective sets of Michael Locher, the score of composer/sound designer Nathan A. Roberts and the movement design of Miki Orihara and Masumi Kishimoto. They all give Crane Story far more weight and seriousness"
- Huffington Post Theater: Triumphant "Septimus & Clarissa;" Wounded "Crane" by Michael Giltz
Published September 19, 2011
A Wonderful Life - Long Wharf
“Nathan Roberts, the onstage Foley artist, enhances the illusion with inventive sound effects.”
- NY Times ARTS | CONNECTICUT: George Bailey, in Living Color and on the Radio by Anita Gates
“But there's also one other person that should get special mention.
Frank Capra? Well, him, too. (His archives are at Wesleyan University by the way). No, I mean very cool Nathan A. Roberts as the "Foley Artist," i.e. sound effects man. He's a production unto himself.”
- Hartford Courant: A Different “Life,” Just in Time for the Holidays by Frank Rizzo
Published December 16, 2011
The Tempest - Hartford Stage
“David Budries and Nathan A. Roberts sound design and music enlivens the production.”
- Hartford Courant: Hartford Stage’s “The Tempest:” Where Art Rules by Frank Rizzo
Published May 17, 2012
“David Budries and Nathan A. Roberts have composed original music which enhances and entrances. This is special.”
- Talkin’ Broadway: The Tempest, Hartford Stage by Fred Sokol
Accidental Death of an Anarchist - Berkley Rep & Yale Rep
(Nominated for a Connecticut Critic's Circal Award)
“sound designs by Nathan A. Roberts and Charles Coes, adding essential atmosphere.”
- San Francisco Examiner: ‘Accidental Death of an Anarchist’ is wild, wacky at Berkeley Rep by Georgia Rowe
Published March 17, 2014
"Nathan A. Roberts and Aaron Halva composed and perform the wonderfully complementary music and live sound effects, without which the performance would collapse. The rest of the design team: Kate Noll (set design); Elivia Bovenzi (costumes); Oliver Wason (lighting); Nathan A. Roberts and Charles Coes (sound); and Michael F. Bergmann (projections) underlines the production’s spirit of improvisation so essential to its success."
Published December 7, 2013
Electric Baby - Two River Theater
"The easy transitions of the drama’s more than 20 scenes are aided by Gina Scherr’s lighting design as well as by the piano-cello compositions and urban sound effects credited to Nathan A. Roberts and Charles Coes."
- New York Times. 'A Review of 'The Electric Baby,' At Two River Theater Company by Michael Sommers
Published April 26, 2014
Dramatis Personae - Playwrights Realm at the Cherry Lane Studio
“Nathan A. Roberts' pyrotechnic sound design is excellent.”
Published October 8, 2010
Our Town - Ford's Theatre
“Director Stephen Rayne working with Sound Designers David Budries and Nathan A. Roberts create a world of simplistic sound on the stage by utilizing the performers to their full potential. The audience can almost see Bessie the horse on stage when they hear the soft clip-clop of her hooves and hear her airy braying and whinnying; all sound effects made by the hands and mouths of those on stage. The pitter patter of rain is light tapping on thigh-tops and the slight rumble of thunder comes from rapid bouncing feet against the floorboards. Budries and Roberts create this splendid atmosphere of ‘almost real’ by utilizing the performers in this manner.”
- DC Metro Theater Arts: ‘Our Town’ at Fords Theatre by Amanda Gunther
Published January 31, 2013
My Wonderful Day - Wilma Theatre
"What hoodwinked me at the Wilma was not the effusively sophomoric characters created by Ayckbourn (Absurd Person Singular, The Norman Conquests) or the inventive spinning stage set by Lee Savage. Or Richard Hamburger's smart direction, which occasionally has people walking in place while rooms move, creating the vertigo effect you get when your train sits on the rails and another moves by. Or Charles Coes' sprightly sound design that pops along as the play becomes a farce without all the usual doors."
- Philadelphia Inquirer: Funny show with a shock by Howard Shapiro,
Published May 28 2011
Passion Play- Yale Rep
"Commendably, director Mark Wing-Davey finds the epic's over-all arc, insuring that the audience is never lost. He's superbly backed by Allen Moyer's fantastic scenic design, Stephen Strawbridge's lighting, Ilona Somogyi's costumes and Charles Coes' otherworldy sounds."
- The Norwalk Hour: Yale Rep’s ‘Passion Play’ Compelling by David A Rosenberg,
Published October 2, 2008
Parade - Ford's Theater
"In his well-manicured revival at Ford’s Theatre in a co-production with Theater J, director Stephen Rayne succeeds in toning down the nettlesome finger-wagging. Still, what’s left is a show in which the orchestra evinces more richness of personality than do the characters. The service this staging provides is to Brown’s score, illuminated in David Budries and Charles Coes’s sound design and Steven Landau’s music direction as a vibrant composition for vocalists, with some sterling solos and choral numbers.:
- The Washington Post: Ford’s Theater’s solemn ‘Parade’ by Peter Marks
Published September 28, 2011
Sound of Music - North Shore Music Theater
Kudos to musical director Dale Rieling - the nonpareil score with its parade of standards including "My Favorite Things," "Do-Re-Mi," "The Lonely Goatherd," etc - is gloriously performed and sung, and not a note or word are lost thanks to the precision of Charles Coes' sound.
- On Boston Stages: NSMT’s ‘Sound of Music’ climbs every mountain by Rich Fahey
Published June 20, 2013