Written by Rajiv Joseph

Directed by Mikael Burke

September 12-29, 2024

A spirited homage to fandom, for sports and theater lovers alike.

“King” LeBron James was just the hero that Cleveland needed. One of the greatest NBA players to ever hit the court, his influence brought promise and renewal to an entire city. Set against the backdrop of James’ electrifying basketball career, this fast-paced comedy chronicles the turbulent bond between two die-hard fans, whose intertwined fortunes are tied to those of their idol. A hilarious and heartfelt exploration of loyalty, legacy, and the shared moments that define us.
[from Forward Theater’s website]

Overall Concept

This is the only play I’ve worked on that when I read the script, I heard no music. This is extremely rare, normally when I read a script I will hear music in my head and get a lot of intuition information on where there could be music, underscore, or sound support (even if we don’t put any there in the actual show). So it was quite a remarkable reading for me to not have that happen at all; I thought, “hmmm, what exactly will I be doing on this one?…”. But as I started to understand the quick costume changes and huge amount of set transformations between scenes, it was pretty clear that sound would be crucial in supporting the transitions of this show. It was the fewest amount of cues I’ve ever had in my Qlab session! It’s also the first time I haven’t composed any original music for a show and worked exclusively with existing recordings. Even though there weren’t many music cues, the remixes I made were absolutely jam packed with action and a lot of work went into each one.

Besides helping with transitions, these music tracks played a big part in setting the year of each scene, as well as activating our cultural memories of that time. It also served a unique function in this show in that I was able to add a little more information and context of what was happening in LeBron’s career leading up to the scene. It’s not something that often happens, but it proved to be a powerful approach to how sound design can serve the story. It was always my goal to tee-up the ball for the actors, but to not reveal too much info, or give away any important bits that the actors are meant to unveil within the scene. I was just there to make the assist, tossing the ball up in the air so they could dunk it.

The main concept was to use popular songs from the year that each scene takes place to set the time period and remix it. This was in complement to the specific “vintage” cell phones (shout out Kaya) & basketball shoes (shout out Karen) used in each scene to set place and time. I specifically wanted to choose a song that had meaning either to the fans of that team or that was used a “theme song” for LeBron during that particular season. Something that would have been used at a sports game, something tied to that moment in time. I then remixed the track to include highlight reel sound bites of announcers calling big plays, crowd reactions, and newscasters discussing the hype or big events of that particular season. I really wanted to infuse the electric energy of what it’s like to be in the crowd at a sporting event or watching a big game with your friends. I wanted to hype up the audience and give the actors a bunch of energy to do the next scene!

I free-handed all of the remixes, nothing was “warped” to the tempo or on the beat “grid”. So when I was chopping up bits of the track & stems, I was lining everything up to the transients of where the next beat would start to splice things in (you can see examples in the photos below). Everything is heavily manipulated and chopped up, moved around, and twisted upside down, but the goal was for you not even to notice, for it just to flow. However, if you go back and listen to the original tracks compared to these remixes, you’ll hear how heavy handed I was and just how much has been changed. It also took a lot of finesse and experimentation placing all of the announcer game calls and newscaster clips. I worked carefully to line things up with a certain beat or match the phrase length of the music, all while telling a coherent story. These remixes were a blast to work on and an interesting puzzle to put together!

Here are some screenshots of my different Remix sessions in Ableton:

Of course, just the clip arrangement view doesn’t tell you the whole story of manipulation involving effect chains, and automation moves, etc. Even on individual clips themselves (like the highlighted ones in the 2nd to last photo), I’m changing the pitch or envelopes in certain ways so that “repeated” sounds are never quite the same twice.

2003-2004 – Pregame Warmup / Pre Show playlist

To set the time period, all of the pre show songs were chart topping hip-hop and club hits from 2003-2004. Millennials, this one’s for you: 50 Cent “In Da Club”, Eminem “Lose Yourself”, Snoop Dogg “Drop It Like It’s Hot”, Usher “Yeah!”, Beyonce “Crazy In Love”, etc, etc… you get the idea, it was basically our prom soundtrack hahaha.

2004 – Quarter 1 / Tip Off

“Jesus Walks” Remix – Original 1st Draft:

Kanye’s first lyrics place us in the heartland, “you know what the Midwest is, young and restless”, we hear the sound bite of the announcer and crowd reacting to LeBron’s first dunk of his first NBA game. Later the news pundet asks “Do you see anything that suggests, he might actually live up to the hype?” followed by Kanye saying “it’s kinda hard and” ending with “the only thing that I pray is that my feet don’t fail me now…”, as if coming from LeBron’s perspective.

In the 2nd Quarter, Shawn talks about sports “fans” being fanatics and that being the term’s origin word. He brings it around to religion, comparing the parallels of LeBron being “a savior” like Jesus. Shawn highlights all the things devoted followers are asked to do in order to please their “vengeful deity” and avoid suffering. So choosing “Jesus Walks” to kick things off this was both a nod to that moment in the script and serving up how much hype there was in the media surrounding LeBron James potentially becoming basketball’s new Messiah.

Top Of Show – “Jesus Walks” Coronation of King James Remix – Final Show Version:

Musically, you can hear in the final Show version, that only a little phrase of music got cut about 3/4 of the way through the track, we put a reverb sting to Kanye’s last vocal note, and added drums in under that final vocal line. Mikael had the idea to add a National Anthem to the start of this cue, since it was the Top of Show and that’s how we’d start the NBA game! I found a few different of clips of the full arena of CAVS fans singing the National Anthem during various playoff games! Here in an earlier draft of the cue, you can hear the full version of the intro where the Announcer asks the fans to join in the Cleveland tradition of singing the national anthem together. Even this bit of the Announcement is edited down, but it still ended up adding about 30 seconds to the top of show cue and that was just too long. Also, we were worried some audience members might stand up to start singing, instead of settling into their seat for the start of the show… So as much as we wanted to include that sound bite to let them know they were actually hearing CAVS fans sing the national anthem – it had to get cut for time.

“Jesus Walks” remix – Longest Intro version with original CAVS Announcer:

“Jesus Walks” remix – Shortest Singing Intro version with “By” moment:

In this shortest version of the singing, a really nice effect happened when the music track hits the downbeat and the CAVS fans are singing the word “By” in the anthem. It was such a cool sounding crowd sample that I wanted to add more of that into the track, but in the end, it felt like once we transitioned into the remix, we should just stay there and leave the anthem clips behind – on to setting up the story up.

2010 – Quarter 2

“All I Do Is Win” Miami Remix – Final Show Version:

In 2010 LeBron James left the Cavs to play for the Miami Heat, where they shortly went on to win 2 NBA championships. “All I Do Is Win” (2010) became one of the theme songs for that team and time period. It was so perfect to use, especially because Matt and Shawn spend most of Quarter 2 being sour and pissed off at LeBron for leaving the CAVS. Further antagonized by Ludacris’ line in the song about being the “South’s Champion, cause all I do, all I – all I – all I – all I do is WIN”!

There were 4 teams in the running trying to secure James for their roster in 2010 and LeBron famously sat down for a live interview on TV to unveil his decision. I added newscasters speculating whether this would be the end of LeBron’s career with the CAVS and actual audio of that live interview.

“The Decision Interview” clip that ends this cue leads with Jim Gray asking, “The answer to the question everybody wants to know… LeBron, what’s your decision?” and leaves LeBron saying “Umm.. In this Fall, man… this is very tough…” The very next sentence LeBron says in that interview is the now infamous line and Shawn’s first line of the scene: “I’m going to take my talents to South Beach…” . The sound design here sets up the actual moment right before Shawn’s first line and then the actor gets to finish it. I really liked how it became a super smooth continuation from the real life recording down into the world of the stage with the actors getting to play off of it start the scene.

2010-2014 – Halftime / Intermission

NBA Game Horn into “All of the Lights”

When looking through 2010 songs for this moment, I spotted “All of the Lights” by Kanye West. Originally, I just thought it would be a funny way to troll my friend, collaborator, and the lighting designer on this show, Colin Gawronski (Stones in His Pockets, Birds of North America, Garbologists, I Carry Your Heart With Me, and more!). How fun if the song lyrics would literally tell the lights what to do: dramatic end to the scene, we’re in black out, then out of the darkness – “Turn up the lights in here baby…” and then the lights would come up in the house for intermission, “Extra bright, I want y’all to see this!”. I was 100% expecting this to get cut, especially because it meant using a 2nd Ye song, but Mikael was down and we kept it in the show! Much to my delight.

During the Intermission, we move progressively from year to year between 2010 to 2014 with each track. This time highlighting the party atmosphere that pop music had shifted into during the 2010s, to contrast from the hip hop club vibes of the mid 2000’s pre show playlist. This again was to help us set the time period and feeling. It was important that these were all songs that might be heard in an NBA arena during a game too, I wanted to keep that high energy atmosphere up during the intermission. I still wanted the audience to feel like they were in a sports arena.

During intermission, there is a massive on stage transition where they rotate the entire back wall and transform the space from a minimal sleek wine bar to a cluttered old vintage store. Huge props to the backstage crew for making that all happen each night!!!

Here’s the Halftime Playlist:
(2010) “All of the Lights” – Kanye West
(2011) “Party Rock Anthem” (feat. Lauren Bennett & GoonRock) by LMFAO
(2011) “We Found Love” (feat. Calvin Harris) by Rihanna
(2012) “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen
(2012) “Don’t Stop the Party” (feat. TJR) by Pitbull
(2013) “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk, Pharrell
(2014) “Turn Down for What” by Lil Jon
(2014) “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift
(2014) “Uptown Funk” (feat. Bruno Mars) by Marc Ronson

2014 – Quarter 3

LeBron’s 1st Game Intro back with the Cavs – Classic NBA Intro Remix – Final Show Version:

Original Clip with Diddy “Comin’ Home” song in background…

This is the actual announcement bringing LeBron James onto the court for his first game back with the CAVS in 2014. And the theme song that was used to celebrate LeBron’s return was Diddy’s “Comin’ Home” track from 2014… As most of you know now, in 2024, Diddy has come under public scrutiny for abuse towards women caught on tape, as well as going to court with charges ranging from sexual abuse to potential sex trafficking. So I felt we should remove the Diddy track from this moment. It’s instead covered up with the Alan Parsons Project’s classic track “Sirius”, which has become synonymous in our zeitgeist with the introductions of players in an NBA game. Though simple in concept, it actually took some tricky finessing to achieve this by of adding extra crowd noises, lining up the two tracks perfectly together in a way that “Sirius” obscured what was left of the Diddy track after some vocal stem isolation. It took some fussy tweaking for it to sound natural and real. To be honest, I felt like there was a problematic nature to some of the other major artists I selected too. Kanye with his anti-semitic comments in recent years. And of course, Drake with all of the “pedo” child grooming allegations being thrown about during this year’s insane rap battle with Kendrick Lamar… to the point where I still debate with myself about whether I should have used their tracks or not. This is not the first time this sort of debate has happened, especially in our age of cancel culture. Simply look at Wagner, R. Kelly, or Michael Jackson… Do we keep listening to their music? Do we separate the Art from the Artist? Is it case by case? It’s especially tricky when these happen to be the biggest songs of an era and completely intertwined with the culture & memory of that time. This is the first time I haven’t composed any original music for a show and this is an issue I didn’t expect to be thinking about when using other people’s music for a show. I’m not claiming to have an answer here, but the Diddy situation was serious enough with the court case happening at the same time as the show, that I felt we at least needed to get rid of his track from that sound clip.

In the 3rd Quarter, Shawn (black) and Matt (white) fall into an argument over Matt’s off-handed, problematic statement that “LeBron should have known his place”. Shawn doesn’t let this slide and it brings up a tough and tricky confrontation over racism between the best friends. At one point, Shawn asks, “What’s my place Matt?”. Matt’s normally unchecked white privilege gets challenged head on, but instead of listening to Shawn explain how these racist remarks have impacted him in a negative way, Matt quickly becomes defensive. Like many white people do, Matt gets caught up about that ‘not being his intent’, rather than recognizing it’s not at all about his feelings and but rather the impact his words and actions do make on other people. Shawn even riffs on Matt’s frequent refrain that “this is (actually) the problem with America”.

I found this moment to be such a parallel with the recent sit down interview that Trump gave at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago. Trump made the remark that “… a lot of the journalists in this room are Black… coming from the border are millions and millions of people that happen to be taking Black jobs.”, to which the journalist cut in to ask, “What exactly is a “Black Job”, sir?”. Trump tries to wiggle out of it by saying, “A black job, that is anybody that has a job, that’s what it is…” It’s very clear in that moment that trump has an “idea” of what a “Black Job” should be (and is not saying it out loud), just as Shawn points out that it must be the case that Matt “has an idea of what LeBron’s place is”. When the ‘what did you mean by that’ push back comes, in both cases the person making the remark fumbles a bullshit response trying to recover the remark as ‘not really meaning anything’. In the play, when Matt tries to weasel out of the true racist meaning of his comment, he reasons that LeBron “stepped out of the place of being a decent person, and should have known to stay in that place”, Shawn fires back with, “That’s not what you meant, that’s slippery Matt – don’t get all slippery on me…” This moment with Trump was almost verbatim what that moment was in the play, very slippery.

In a recent talk back, one of the audience members pointed out that these statements written into Matt’s dialog, that “LeBron doesn’t know his place”, or that he “lacks class” were actual criticisms people were throwing at James during this time period.

2016 – Quarter 4

“Started From the Bottom” Championship Parade Remix – Final Show Version:

This transition exits us out of that huge, relationship changing argument over racism at the end of Quarter 3. It’s the button out of that scene and I wanted to capture the fracturing of that friendship into a low point of what comes after, being alone and apart from each other. So we hear the sound of a person playing basketball by themselves, without their friends. We hear them obviously bricking a shot off the rim, the ball miss the basket, then bounces on the floor a few times before it rolls away. Originally one of my concepts was to have each transition start with basketball sounds that mirrored the friendship arc in the story. This is one of those concepts that made the final cut and I love how the basketball sounds turned out over the remixed beat at the top of the track.

Drake’s “Started From the Bottom” (2013) was actually used by Miami Heat fans to celebrate their titles with LeBron and Wade, but in this case, it lyrically made more sense to use it for the CAVS. The fans were celebrating their first NBA championship title in 52 years with LeBron back on the team. After all they had been through, they “started from the bottom, and now we’re here”, champions at the top, “..the whole team’s here” including their MVP LeBron James. I tried to only use the chorus and a few small bits of rap sound bits (“story stayed the same through the money and the fame”), focusing more heavily on remixing the beat itself. We’re setting the context about the big parade that’s happening around Cleveland. I specifically left out any obvious remarks about the CAVS winning the championship, focusing more on how big the parade was going to be. I wanted the audience to be able to imagine that it could have been a parade for one of the big games in that Finals series happening in Cleveland. I felt it was important to let the characters reveal what the parade was actually about, that it was the Championship parade to celebrate the CAVS 1st NBA title. In the first half of the cue we hear a lot of news caster commentary about the parade and the fans excitement. Throughout the middle through the end of the cue, we hear some very special highlights from Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Championship against the Golden State Warriors. Including one of my favorite sound bites: the actual game sounds of LeBron’s enormous block on “Iggy” with the crowd and announcer’s huge reaction to that moment. I was hoping to get this into the cue if possible because Shawn recounts his courtside view of this very moment to Matt as the characters find their friendship again, bonding over their love of the game and mending old wounds.

I originally drafted all of these cues to about 35 seconds long, in the end there was so much stuff to clear off of the stage for this transition from Q3 to Q4 that I had to continue remixing the track and added 2 minutes more! This is the most manipulated of all the beats & I’m pretty stoked on how this remix turned out, I tried to match that energy that I had found for the “Jesus Walks” remix and carry that over to this one as well. There is a little nod to one of my favorite producers, J Dilla, in this track with the sweeping “siren” sounds to add hype, though a little different tone not as loud as Jay Dee’s. I also had the crowd noises get “chopped up” by the drum beat throughout this remix – which is a sound I love, it just has so much energy!

2016 – Buzzer Beater & Post Game / Post Show

End of Show – “We Are The Champions” Buzzer Beater Remix – Final Show Version

At the end of the show, Shawn and Matt play a one-on-one game to 11 with a ball of paper and the trash basket to decide whether they’ll go downtown to enjoy the parade or if they’ll stay and have some “baby time” for Matt’s potential phone break up. Here the script leaves a nice opening for basketball crowd and game noises to creep in under their impromptu game to bring us into the final silhouette moment.

The sound originally started a little earlier, first with some squeaking sneakers on the court of a friendly pick up game, followed by the ramping up of arena crowd cheers. This ended up lasting a little too long, so we tightened it up to start just after Matt makes his final basket. In both the original and final versions, you can hear the actual play call of the announcer counting down the final seconds of Game 7 of the 2016 Championship, to say “final seconds, it’s over, it’s over! Cleveland is a city of Champions once again!”. We go into blackout with Queen’s “We are the Champions” to bring us home for curtain bows. One of the nice touches that I loved about the moment of lights coming up for bows, is Marques and Greg are there holding each others hands up high, as champions together.

“We Are The Champions” the Post Game / Post Show Interview mix

If you listen to the original draft of the this cue, you’ll hear sound bites from the post game interview and team mates and crowd chanting “MVP!” to James. We cut this out of the curtain call itself, but then added it into a little “post game” cue which comes after the curtain call and announcement for talkback, which I thought worked very nicely.

“We Are The Champions” – Original Draft 1

There are no losers in this beautiful story of friendship.

It probably took you as long to read this post as it does to run the whole show! I always seem to have a lot to say about the design and process… Thanks so much for checking out my work. I am dyslexic, so it takes a very long time for me to put these posts together. Please make grace for my grammar and spelling errors!!!
❤️ Brian