Historic WYO Theater Is First In Wyoming With High-Tech Audio Filtering System

SHERIDAN — People tend to think of the historic WYO Theater in Sheridan as just that — historic. The 1923 theater has plenty of nostalgia, but also keeps up with the times.

The theater’s latest high-tech accessory is a move towared the future of theater in which most of the audience can easily cancel out their popcorn crunching, joke-telling and chatty neighbors.

The device, called Auri, is a new option for hearing assistive devices, but it’s not limited to people with hearing difficulties. The broadcast audio uses Bluetooth technology to beam high-quality audio right into compatible receiving devices, be they hearing aids, earbuds or noise-cancelling headphones.

Those who use Auri also get an additional technology assist that filters out background noise, further enhancing the theater experience for users.

The new system complements WYO Theater’s hearing loop system installed a couple of years ago, which transmits to compatible hearing aids.

WYO Theater is the first in Wyoming to install this new system, but director Erin Butler expects that more theaters will follow suit, because the price point for the Auri system is quite affordable.

“When we installed our hearing loop system a couple of years back, we had to rip up all the carpeting and create this channel in the concrete floor,” Butler said. “And then they laid this coil, it’s an actual copper coil they lay in the ground. So that took an amount of time and an amount of money to install.”

The figure, Butler said, was in the neighborhood of $22,000 all told, in addition to requiring them to tear up the floor and then repair it again.

The Auri system, on the other hand?

Its price point was around $5,000, and didn’t require anything special.

“It’s essentially low-energy bluetooth,” she said. “So instead of needing to go through this very difficult process of installing the system, there was just a transmitter. And we put the transmitter where it would be best suited in the theater and then we plugged it in.”

Bring Your Own Headphones

Butler said people who need an assistive device can request them when they purchase their tickets. But they can also bring their own devices as well.

WYO Theater has an open house planned Sept. 25 before that night’s show to show the system off and let people test it out for themselves. Anyone who has a device they think might work with the system is welcome to bring it at that time to see.

“We’ll have some giveaways as well,” Butler said. “So, I’m really excited about that. This is just another step we are taking toward making sure folks have a great experience here, regardless of their abilities.”

The new Auri system is just one of many high-tech devices that WYO Theater has purchased of late, to keep its theater on the cutting edge.

“We installed a brand-new sound system with brand-new speakers and a very fancy sound board,” she said. “We are constantly changing over the technology for the theater, so we can keep up, although it’s hard with the ever-changing landscape of the performing arts.”

The new soundboard has given WYO Theater new ways to mix sound, as well as move sound through the small and intimate performance space. It complements the relatively new lighting system, which can move lights around like it’s a high-end Coldplay or Taylor Swift concert, even though it’s a small and intimate setting. 

Keeping up with the times is vital to attracting big names to the small, intimate theater, Butler said. 

“We are able to attract a different kind of artist because there’s not a concern or a fear, or just a lack of understanding,” she said. “Like this is a small theater in Wyoming, what kind of technology are they going to have? Are they going to know, or is our show going to be supported in the way it should be?”

Keeping up with the Tech Joneses has brought bigger names to the small theater, Butler added. Like country music star Garth Brooks in the 90s, and, more recently, Lyle Lovett, Grammy-winning bluegrass star Dan Tyminski, who was this year’s season opener.

Another Device, More Loneliness?

A growing pile of electronics these days have people feeling less and less connected all the time. Everyone has seen the couple out to dinner, both reading on a cell phone, and saying nothing to each other.

“(Auri) is really great,” she said. “But it could sort of, like, take away from the communal experience, because then you’re just stuck in your own (headphones.)”

Stephen Howard Tucker, owner of Big Horn Films, works with WYO Theater in Sheridan to train future filmmakers. The device poses an interesting question for the future of the medium, he told Cowboy State Daily. 

“The theater as we know it might not be the same in 10 years,” he said. “To a certain extent, I do agree (with Butler). Because I think part of the theater and being in a movie theater is all of that experience being around all these people and you’re all experiencing this thing that’s happening live on the stage.”

Theater has long made use of its audiences in various ways to color a performance, from directly addressing them, to using them almost as characters in the show.

“The art as we know it was founded in that natural environment where a bunch of people sit together and experience what’s on the stage together,” he said.

But, at the end of the day, popcorn-crunching, joke-telling neighbors are a pretty distracting influence during a performance. Maybe that’s a moment when more togetherness isn’t what people really want.

“It might actually really help some people get into the performance and really just focus and not get distracted,” he said. “Maybe we’ll all just get really immersed in the experience of the theater, then. So perhaps it could be a good thing for people, especially those who have listening issues.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.