SETTING SIGHTS — AND SOUNDS — ON BIGGER STAGE
Denverborn composer Austin Wintory’s multisensory stage production “Light in the Void” designed to entertain and educate
Denverborn composer Austin Wintory brings his “Light in the Void” symphonic and theatrical stage production to the Boettcher Concert Hall.
Austin Wintory is venturing into the unknown again.
The Denverborn composer, 34, created the first video game score ever to be nominated for a Grammy with 2012’s “Journey,” which lost to thenfavorite Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”
Since then, the prolific, Los Angelesbased Wintory has barreled ahead with dozens of film, TV and videogame projects, including critical and commercial juggernauts such as “Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate” and the last two entries in the “Banner Saga” series, among many, many others.
But Wintory, who graduated from Cherry Creek High School in 2003 and returns to guestdirect the Colorado Symphony from time to time, set his sights on a loftier goal.
“This new show is a unique combination of elements, and we have found that adequately describing that combination is hard,” Austin said via phone from Los Angeles.
Here’s our best stab: “Light in the Void,” which debuts at Boettcher Concert Hall on Oct. 5, is a multisensory stage production designed to entertain and educate. The Colorado Symphony will perform Wintory’s original score while actors portray an allegorical tale about the quest for human knowledge. A trio of respected, reallife scientists will pop in to talk about their groundbreaking work in terms we can all understand.
Wintory admits the show is difficult to visualize, given a mix of elements that pull in potentially competing directions. Is it a TED Talk with cuttingedge special effects? An episode of “Cosmos,” but fit for a theatrical environment?
Whatever it is, it’s never been done before.
“At heart, the whole point is to communicate the scientific way of thinking,” said Wintory, a selfdescribed science nerd. “We are evangelizing for the scientific mindset, which embraces and leans into our areas of ignorance. The start of every great adventure is, essentially, the three words ‘I don’t know.’ ”
Enough of Wintory’s fans were sold on “A Light in the Void” to support a Kickstarter campaign earlier this year to the tune of $113,438, from a goal of $80,000. And the talent that Wintory and his cohort — Emmynominated sciencedocumentary director Anthony Lund — have lined up honors their fans’ commitment to the project.
Troy Baker, who has voiced lead characters in acclaimed, multimilliondollargrossing video games such as “The Last of Us” and the God of War, Uncharted and Lego gaming series, will be joined by Hana Hayes, who previously worked with Baker on “The Last of Us” (as the character of Sarah), as well as various TV series and films.
The scientific muscle is equally impressive: Physicist and professor Maria Spiropulu (Caltech, Fermilab, CERN Large Hadron Collider) joins professor Alice Roberts (anthropology & paleopathology at the University of Birmingham) and NASA veteran Carolyn Porco (a frequent PBS, BBC, Discovery and Tvnews commentator). Porco, it should be noted, hails from the Planetary Science division at the University of Colorado.
So how does it all hang together?
“Basically, Hana’s character is sitting by a campfire and trying to make it grow so that the encroaching, terrifying shadows around her will recede and she can feel safe,” Wintory said, mindful of the heavy metaphoric content. “And then she encounters a series of characters all played by Troy — with costume changes and the whole nine yards — who kind of challenge her, almost like adversaries. Really, they’re teachers nudging her on the path. And then after each of these encounters there’s a mystical shift where the lights go crazy and the music makes a hard turn, and then the scientists come out and walk us through some of these huge, existential questions.”
Those questions include: Where did we come from? Who are we? And where are we going? On a less (or perhaps equally) heady level, Wintory also recruited the lighting designer for musical artists Childish Gambino and M83, whose work in the show will be augmented by fog machines.
Science is finally cool, Wintory believes. Five times he’s seen astrophysicist Neil degrasse Tyson speak to crowds of roughly 5,000 people, and each one was sold out. We live in an era where science appreciation has crawled out of parents’ basements and become a mainstream concept, he said.
But Wintory is also blunt about the pitfalls of the project, admitting “it could very well suck” while in the same breath invoking “too many cooks in the kitchen.” But given the time, care, resources and pedigree being channeled into the project, it will at the very least be interesting — as audiences can see when the concert is streamed globally on gaming platform Twitch. A threelp vinyl soundtrack is also being planned.
The hope is that if this catches on, it can be performed anywhere in the world, provided the participants stick to the original script. That’s not crazy to imagine, considering that touring videogamescore shows sell out globally (including in Denver), or that support for science has become something of a rallying cry for some people.
“There are a few moments in the show where we gently dip our toes in waters that have become politically charged, but it’s astonishing that they are charged at all,” Wintory said. “There’s nothing inherently, mutually exclusive about science and religion, and our show is not meant to be political. It’s a subtle nod to Carl Sagan in that the default state of the world is blackness — a position of not knowing or understanding. And the best light source we’ve developed is science.”