For Disabled Specialist, Sound Is No Barrier

It happened in a flash as James LeBrecht was leading the way to the booth where he designed the sound for “Measure for Measure” at the Old Globe Theatre. He halted his wheelchair before a small flight of steps, jumped out, crawled up, dragged the wheelchair up behind him and was back in his wheelchair--all without breaking pace.

LeBrecht, the 33-year-old resident sound designer for the Berkeley Repertory Theatre for the last 10 years, may have been born with spina bifida , a spinal cord defect in which the spine is partly exposed, but he never stops for obstacles.

“I didn’t find out until I was in my mid-teens that I shouldn’t have made it as far as I did,” LeBrecht said. “I wasn’t supposed to grow up to age 2, and then 4 and then 10. All I knew is that I wasn’t walking and I would go to the doctors a lot.”

In the sound booth, with the keyboards and amplifiers all within reach, LeBrecht is in his element. He trained for this since his days as an undergraduate at UC San Diego. LeBrecht showed how he used a digital sampling keyboard to change the pitches of a tape of a howling puppy for “Measure for Measure.” Setting the pitch above the original recording made it sound like sea gulls. Setting it below made it sound like a wolf howling.

He demonstrated with his hands how he set up a fishing line from which he hung an old ammo box, a gas cap and metal pipes to provide “a palette of sounds” for the late John Hirsch when the director came to the Old Globe to do “Coriolanus” last year.

LeBrecht described his delight at creating one of his favorite moments in sound design--the time when, for just an instant, the crickets suddenly stop chirping in the La Jolla Playhouse production of “War Babies,” at the moment when, unknown to the characters on stage, the nuclear bomb drops far away. The effect was subtle enough, said LeBrecht, that you sensed something was different, without being quite sure what you didn’t hear.

With 90 professional theater productions to his credit, he stressed, “I am not a disabled sound designer. I am a sound designer with a disability.”

He has managed to not only limit the impact of his disability on his job; he has, over the years, minimized its effect on his life.

Forced to Adapt

Since he was a child, LeBrecht’s parents expected him to adapt to their split-level house in Westchester. He grew up crawling around the house, clambering up as many as three flights of stairs with eight or nine steps apiece. From mid-first grade on, he attended public schools rather than schools for the disabled. He didn’t get his first wheelchair until he was almost ready for school.

“My parents were not very overprotective, which is the downfall of a lot of disabled people. In their own way they were preparing me for the real world,” LeBrecht said.

Not only does LeBrecht live alone in his Berkeley apartment, he does a great deal of driving in a customized van he uses to go collecting the sounds he needs for his work. For “Measure for Measure,” he drove out near Cuyamaca Lake, just north of Pine Valley, to tape bird sounds to create the feel of “the walls of the theater melting away.”

His interest in theater began in church, where a family friend, Ed Bryce, who played Bill Bauer on “The Guiding Light,” helped his father put on shows for the congregation.

By the time LeBrecht was ready for college, he had decided to major in audio. After his first class, when he realized audio meant studying physics rather than producing sounds, he switched to a theater major and studied sound design.

He was hired by the Berkeley Repertory Theatre soon after graduation.

Still, as he is the first to admit, it hasn’t been easy.

“I had a very rough row to hoe,” he said. “And I’m not just talking about getting a job. I’m talking about getting a date. Or going to the beach.”

Overcoming Doubters

LeBrecht has had to work hard to convince others that his disability was not going to impede his work.

In 1982, Des McAnuff, the artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse, wanted LeBrecht to design the sound for his off-Broadway play, “The Death of Von Richthofen as Witnessed from Earth.” Robert Woodruff, the director of the project, also wanted LeBrecht. But the production manager for the show presented more of a challenge.

“I had to convince the production manager for 45 minutes on the phone that I could get up and down steps,” LeBrecht recalled. LeBrecht persuaded him and was hired to create the sounds of flying for McAnuff’s story about a WWI flying ace. He wound up using the sound of a Gatling gun and a lawn mower--to suggest the plane’s engine--for the opening scene dogfight.

Another highlight in his career came when he was hired by the Old Globe Theatre last year to design the sound for “Love’s Labour’s Lost.” Studying at UC San Diego, he always fantasized about working at the Old Globe. And LeBrecht couldn’t imagine anything more inspiring--or intimidating--than working under the direction of Craig Noel, whom LeBrecht describes as “a legend.”

“I really wanted to make good,” LeBrecht said. “I feel like I have a responsibility not to fail. I feel if I do people will say he failed because he was disabled. You feel there’s an added onus when you have a disability.

“When you feel you are really integrated you have the freedom to fail, which means you have the freedom to stretch yourself and try much harder. We’re still a long way off from that,” LeBrecht said.

And yet, despite his words, he is still taking chances.

He recently left his full-time position at the Berkeley Rep to explore free-lance work in theater and film. His upcoming project at Fantasy Films, part of the Saul Zaentz Film Center in Berkeley, is “Madhouse,” starring Kirstie Alley of “Cheers.” It’s a story about a cat who dies and comes back to life.

Why did he leave what he calls “one of the best sound jobs for theater in the country”?

He gives the wheel on his wheelchair a playful spin that rolls him from side to side.

“I just wanted to give it a shot,” he said with a grin.