New York, NY (April 30, 2026)—One of the most buzzed-about Broadway plays this year has been Dog Day Afternoon, an adaptation of the classic 1975 Al Pacino film about a bank heist that goes off the rails…and then keeps going. Staged at the August Wilson Theatre on 52nd Street, Cody Spencer’s sound design supports the production with 1970s classic rock, a crowd participation sequence built around the infamous Attica! chant, and a helicopter descent that closes the show. To bring it to life in the venue, required, according to PRG vice president of Audio David Strang, an audio system akin to what you’d use for a musical.
“I remember Cody telling me what he was imagining, and I thought: That’s fantastic—you’re going to be the first person to put a musical-scale speaker system into a Broadway play,” says Strang, whose company provided the sound reinforcement for the production.
Spencer explains, “I wanted the music to be big and full, not just heavy on the low end or oversaturated. I needed it to feel like you’re watching a film, where the music drops in and fills the whole room. That’s what led me to L-Acoustics and L-ISA.”
Spencer initially sketched a conventional left-right-center configuration with some playback, but expanded on that after discussions with director Rupert Goold. The set rotates between the interior of the bank and the street outside, and Goold wanted the crowd, which is gathered just beyond the doors, and invisible to the audience, to be a constant presence. As the perspective shifts from inside to outside, sound filters open and close, drawing the audience into the sonic point of view of the characters. At one point, the audience itself becomes the crowd.
L-Acoustics Soundvision was central to the design process. Spencer used it to model sub coverage on the vertical plane, an unconventional application, but one that gave him the acoustic data he needed before a single cabinet was hung.
The main system is built around a split L-ISA Scene configuration of five A Series arrays, each comprising a single A15 Focus over two A15 Wide, flown over the stage lip. A second tier of five A Series arrays, this time one A10 Focus over one A10 Wide, provide spatial delays to the front mezzanine.
A pair of cardioid subwoofer hangs of three SB18 flank the center A Series array in the main Scene system, complemented by four ceiling-mounted SB10i. Elsewhere, seven ultra-compact X4i run along the stage lip, with two colinear Syva systems positioned as orchestra sources. The under-mezzanine delays comprise eight X4i, seven X8, and seven 5XT, with seven additional X8 handling mezzanine delays in the balcony. Four 5XT serve as near-fills and mezzanine fills.
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The surround system is extensive: eight Syva and 34 X8 provide discrete immersive coverage across multiple seating zones spanning the full orchestra and both mezzanine levels. On stage, a pair of X8 and one 5XT reinforce stage sources directly, while two X12 flown above the deck give performers monitoring. The entire system is driven by an L-ISA Processor II, with object-based mix control managed via an L-ISA Controller paired to a DiGiCo SD10T console at front of house.
The production’ puts the system to the test, especially during the Attica! Sequence, where the sound places the audience on the street, outside the bank with the crowd. When the helicopter arrives, L-ISA renders it as a physical presence overhead, with the sub hangs and ceiling-mounted SB10i working together.
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“The Attica! moment is when you realize the system is doing exactly what we designed it to do,” Spencer says. “The audience isn’t watching a crowd, they’re inside one. And when the helicopter comes in at the end, people genuinely look up. That’s the whole point: you’re not sitting in a theater watching a film happen. You’re in it.”