TYLER PERRY RETURNS TO STAGE AS MADEA WITH MICA

“THE MEYER SYSTEM ALSO HAS GREAT

SEPARATION

BETWEEN THE LEFT AND RIGHT ARRAYS, AND

HAS MUCH HIGHER

FIDELITY THAN OTHER SYSTEMS I’VE USED.”

— MIKE CHARBONNEAU

FOH ENGINEER

MADEA’S BIG HAPPY FAMILY TOUR

ON THE MADEA’S Big Happy Family tour, fans of Tyler Perry’s wildly successful TV shows and movies follow the comedian in his new play in theaters and arenas across the US. The musical tale reunites the audience with Perry’s signature char- acter Madea, a silver-haired, aggressive matriarch. TEC Award-winning Thun- der Audio of Livonia, Mich. is providing a Meyer Sound MICA and M’elodie line array loudspeaker system for the tour.

A deviation from mainstream theater, Madea’s Big Happy Family engages the crowd with spontaneous humor, and features musical interludes that find audi- ences singing along to well-known R&B and rock and roll hits. “I’m breaking the wall. I’m talking to the audience. It’s the- ater. It’s some of everything. It’s concert,” says Perry, according to www.tv.com.

For the arena shows, Thunder Audio is supplying 16 Meyer Sound MICA line array loudspeakers per side, in addition to side hangs of ten M’elodie line array loudspeakers each, four for frontfills, and six 700-HP subwoofers per side for bass power. In more intimate venues like Oakland, Calif.’s Paramount Theatre, 12 MICA loudspeakers per side were used as the main system. RMS remote moni- toring system delivers extensive status

and system performance data directly to the operator from every loudspeaker. A Galileo loudspeaker management sys- tem provides signal processing, while a SIM 3 audio analyzer is used for system optimization.

A nine-year veteran on the Tyler Perry crew, FOH Engineer Mike Charbonneau is touring with a Meyer Sound system for the first time. Charbonneau reports that the system is powerful yet well controlled, allowing him to manage the frequent au- dience interactions, the nine-piece band and 13 actors on stage. “The Meyer sys- tem also has great separation between the left and right arrays, and has much higher fidelity than other systems I’ve used.”

To ensure even seating area coverage, system tech Keith Jex of Thunder Audio takes advantage of the accurate predic- tions of the Meyer Sound MAPP Online Pro acoustical prediction program. “MAPP is used for every show,” says Jex. “We still walk around and use our ears and SIM, but the prediction is always very close to reality. This is important. You don’t want the last row asking for their money back because they can’t hear the show.” The audio crew also includes Bruce Danz as monitor technician.

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