Robert Oriol is a composer and sound designer currently based in Los Angeles, California. In addtion to original music composition and theatrical sound design, he also provides music recording and production services, as well as editing and mixing.
Before performance art and Cabaret, Brecht and Weill stretched the limits of theatre in a dark, daring, and endlessly entertaining way. Composer and critic Virgil Thomson celebrated The Threepenny Opera as “one of the century’s most powerful creations” and musical avatar Bob Dylan praised “the raw intensity of the songs.” Lights! Camera! Factions! There’s plotting and intrigue at every turn, and searing social commentary to spare. Hold on to your hats (and wallets): this gaudy gallery of ruffians and rogues has style—and wiles—to spare.
This play features music composed by Kurt Weill. Produced February 2015 at A Noise Within. Directed by ANW Artisitic Directors Geoff Elliot and Julia Rodriguez-Elliot. Musical Direction by DeReau K. Farrar. Orchestra members are Melissa Sky-Eagle (keyboards) Robert Oriol (guitar, banjo, bass and slide guitar), Scott Roewe (woodwinds), Wes Smith (woodwinds), Angela Romero (trumpet), Adam Leibreich-Johnson (trombone) and Tim Curle (percussion). Set Design by Fredrica Nascimiento. Lighting by Ken Booth. Photo by Craig Schwartz Photography.
Closes May 17, 2015
"The production elements, as with all of this company's work, are excellent. The small orchestra under the baton of DeReau K. Farrar is outstanding, and the costume design by Angela Balogh Calin and hair, wigs and makeup by Gieselle Blair are sublime." - Huffington Post.com, February 2015
"Weill's score was originally presented by 7 musicians covering 23 instrumental parts and music director DeReau K. Farrar conducts his 7-piece orchestra for A Noise Within presumably to those original specifications. What I can tell you is that they sound great on the difficult music which is a direct departure from the traditions of grand opera and includes the freer elements of jazz, British music hall tunes, and Weill's characteristic sound-scapes." - BroadwayWorld.com, February 2015
"This cast, and the superlative orchestra led by DeReau K. Farrar, clearly have the musical chops to deliver." - Glendale News Press, February 2015
"With a soft opening, members of the prodigiously talented cast are stationed around the house and on stage doing their warm ups, before the play within the play begins, while the fabulous orchestra (also on stage) tunes their instruments. Brecht and Weill were musical geniuses and “The Threepenny Opera” with a mix of brash, harsh and tender melodies is a shining example. Under the baton DeReau K. Farrar, the orchestra’s seven musicians captured all the nuances." - Examnier.com, February 2015
"Highly imaginative direction by Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and husband Geoff, DeReau K. Farrar’s superb musical direction and the production’s equally superb live orchestra, a couldn’t-be-better twenty-member cast, and a design team extraordinaire combine to create quite a production, one that Brecht/Weill aficionados are sure to love." - StageSceneLA, February 2015