Tom Gibbons is a UK-based sound designer and composer for theatre, musical theatre, film, and live installation. He won a Drama Desk for Outstanding Sound Design of a Play for the 2026 revival of Oedipus, for which he is also nominated for a Tony Award.
A few of his numerous credits include: West Side Story (Broadway Theatre, New York); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Booth Theatre, New York); Cabaret (Goteborg Opera); The Antipodes, Home, I’m Darling, Hedda Gabler, Sunset At The Villa Thalia, The Red Barn (National Theatre); People, Places And Things (Winner for Best Sound Design, Olivier Awards 2016; Wyndham’s Theatre/National Theatre); All About Eve (Noel Coward Theatre); Our Town (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre).
Tom Gibbons shares his thoughts about his Tony-nominated lighting.
Production: Oedipus, Studio 54. Director: Robert Icke
Co-designers:
Hildegard Bechtler, Scenic Designer
Wojciech Dziedzic, Costume Designer
Natasha Chivers, Lighting Designer
Tal Yarden, Video Designer
Live Design: Please describe the quality of the sound – what did you want the audience to hear?
Tom Gibbons: First and foremost the audience needed to hear the words coming from the actors mouths. We needed complete access to the characters and their relationships with each other without the barrier of an audible sound system. Secondly we needed to underscore and support those relationships with atmospheric sound and music which seemingly seeped from the walls of the office space they were in. We wanted to feel the underscore before we heard it.
LD: Architecture of the rig – what did you use and where are you placing it?
TG: I used the
d&d Soundscape system to achieve the above. For the dialogue we used trackers on each of the actors to locate their vocals to their position on stage. I also used sound objects for the main playback elements of the show so that it created a diffuse and non-directional image for the sound design. We added extra surrounds to the auditorium so that we could achieve an even coverage from the rear/sides and front auditorium areas. These were all d&b elements, with the main system being Y8/Y12 Array and Vsubs flown above the stage.
LD: What rental shop did you choose and what piece of gear was non-negotiable?
TG: Masque Sound was the rental shop for
Oedipus, and they were a great support. The
zactrack trackers for the actors were non-negotiable (which they had) plus we needed a shop that had experience and carried a good number of d&b mid sized array and point source boxes.
LD: Who was on your sound crew?
TG: Sam Schloelgel was the associate sound designer on Oedipus. We worked closely with Dillon Cody (PSE) and Max Helburn (assistant sound). The show team was Brian Davies (A1) and Adam Rigby (A2).
LD: What makes the sound for this production so successful for you?
TG: Two things. We managed to integrate the underscore smoothly and sympathetically with the dialogue. There were moments when I felt you could feel the sound design supporting the words being spoken on-stage and hadn't noticed when it had started. That balance was something we worked very carefully on in Studio 54 and the whole sound team was responsible for that. We also created the sensation of a huge, thunderingly loud convention hall for the last moment of the show which really tested the audience's threshold of sound level. We were supported by Dillon and the production crew to get those extra speakers into the room so that we could push SPL limits, something which was important to help cleanse the audience after two hours of slow building tension.
