"Without them, there would be no theatre..." This thought inspired our interview series, in which we take a twist on the audience experience.

► Our next "victim" is Zoltán Halmen, the sound engineer of IMITATION OF LIFE. In his job he builds, manages and dismantles the sound and video equipment for performances.

𝐏: How long have you been connected to the Proton Theatre? 
𝐙: Since summer 2017.

𝐏: Which is your favourite and most important Proton performance and why?
𝐙: Of course it's IMITATION OF LIFE, because that's the production I was involved in as a sound/video technician.

𝐏: 'When everything goes wrong' - Technical difficulties are almost always there, but were there any that were really memorable for you?
𝐙: The video technology integrated into IMITATION OF LIFE causes some problems at almost every venue. The 6 projectors and 1 live camera in the show form a complex system, it needs a number of "gadgets" to operate it, and in such cases a failure of any link can cause a global problem that requires a longer investigation. This is a particularly exciting task in a time pressure, but somehow the picture always comes together in the end. The most technical problems I remember encountering were in St Petersburg in 2017, but as we had planned for a longer construction time, we managed to "patch together" a working video system for the performances.