Meet our new Sound Supervisor… Jeff Polunas!

After an extensive search, we are thrilled to announce that Jeff Polunas will be joining UCI mid-May as our new Production Sound Supervisor!



Jeff is thrilled to be retuning to UCI, where he received his MFA in Sound Design in 2012. Since graduating, Jeff previously served as Production Sound Supervisor at CSU-Fullerton for 5 years. Jeff is also a member of USA829 as a Sound Designer and has recently designed Shakespeare in Love and Sisters Rosensweig at South Coast Repertory. With over 125 designs to his credit, he has designed for the following theaters: South Coast Repertory, Antaeus, International City Theater, PCPA Theaterfest, Summer Repertory Theater, Atwater Village and many universities in Southern California. Jeff is also a member of the USITT MainStage Committee which he helps organize, install and run the Sound element of the MainStage events each year. Jeff is looking forward to working with the Graduate Students at UCI and helping mold future sound designers.


It's been a very long year since we lost our dear friend and longtime Sound Supervisor, BC Keller.  I would like to personally thank the following people for doing double-duty getting our shows up and keeping the shop from exploding:  our "unofficial" interim supervisors -- Kate Fechtig, Matt Glenn and Mark Caspary; our incredible grads -- Jordan Tani, Andrew Tarr, Ningru Guo, Hunter Moody, Jack Bueermann, Ben Scheff and Andrea Allmond; our Production Manager -- Keith Bangs; and the over-hire professionals from Diablo Sound.  You are all the very best, but thank goodness Jeff is on the way… and not a minute too soon!

-Mike Hooker

A furious end to our year.

UCI runs on the quarter system (as opposed to the semester system), which means that we're just now, in mid-June, ending our week of final exams.  Most of the rest of the country has been out of classes for almost a month.  Not us.

Last weekend, we ended our school year with a very busy weekend full of activities.  On Friday night, we held the thesis critique for graduating student Andrea Allmond. For thesis productions, Mike and I always invite an outside sound designer to watch the production and provide feedback. For Andrea's work on Avenue Q, we were delighted to host Broadway Sound Designer (and legend) Tony Meola. Tony flew in on Friday afternoon, had dinner with Andrea, Mike, and I, saw the show, and then joined the rest of the program for a critique in the Meyer Sound Design Studio.  The critique was robust and valuable, and I did manage to snap a very serious-looking photograph of the goings-on.

On Saturday morning, before we shuttled Tony back to LAX for his flight home, the program gathered at my place for a breakfast.  It was cloudy and slightly misty at first, but soon the sun came out and we all enjoyed our food and visit.

On Sunday, everyone gathered back at my place for a much sadder occasion.  Mike and I hosted a memorial celebration for our old friend and colleague, BC Keller.  BC passed in May from a relatively short battle with cancer, and we knew that his friends and colleagues needed an opportunity to grieve and remember him.  We opened the doors to everyone who knew him: family, friends, UCI co-workers, LA co-workers, students, and alumni.  The Claire Trevor School of the Arts Dean's office also helped out by providing some refreshments.  

Here's a photo of BC's mom Patty checking out a quilt that one of her friends made with some of BC's tshirts.

And now, with that flurry of activity behind us, it's time to say good-bye to this school year.  Congratulations to Andrea Allmond and Ben Scheff, our graduating MFA students, and to Jacques Zwielich, our Honors in Design BA! You'll go off and do great things.  But first, take a short break, if you can. You've earned it.

BC Keller, our friend forever

Mike and I are heartbroken to share that BC Keller, UCI’s longtime Sound Supervisor, passed away on the morning of 4 May due to complications from cancer. He was a hell of a guy, a prince among men, and his death has left a big hole in all of our hearts.

I first met BC in 2006. I was living in NYC at the time but contemplating a move to LA. I flew out for a week of meetings and temperature-taking, and during my visit to South Coast Repertory, he gave me a tour of the facilities. Shortly after I started at UCI in 2007, BC left SCR to take the Sound Supervisor position at Dallas Theatre Center.  A few years later, when we had an opening at UCI, Mike and I were able to tempt him back to southern California.  He was with us at UCI for the rest of his life.

BC was super-smart. He knew how to tackle complex concepts and gear. He was our resident expert on some of the equipment that Mike and I occasionally struggled with.  He taught our LCS & D-Mitri modules, and the students knew that he was the go-to person with questions when they were furstrated with programming. 

BC was kind and generous.  He came in early and stayed late. He responded to text messages and phone calls from his students even on his (rare) days off, and he maintained just as active a relationship with our alumni as Mike and I do. We often thought of him as our third faculty member in the sound design program. He didn’t formally teach, but he understood that in his work with the sound department, he was mentoring and teaching students. He took that responsibility seriously.

BC had a love for life that was inspiring. Even when he was at his most exhausted and frustrated, he was full of corny jokes and a mischievous sense of humor.  When I sent an email to the current and former students announcing his death, I asked them to share some of his sense of humor with me.  In response, I’ve gotten lots of screengrabs of text message exchanges.  Everyone had a special relationship with BC. I know I did.

Mike and I are devastated by his death, for reasons both personal and professional.  Not only was BC a colleague at work, but he was a friend. We hung out with him, ate with him, drank with him. We visited him in the hospital and at home during his last months, as he rested, enjoyed catching up with family and friends, watching movies, listening to music. We watched his mother Patty as she cared for him, and we wished, as always, that we could do more, could ease his burden, just as he eased ours.

On behalf of our MFA family: Cory, Joe, Palmer, Tim, Todd, Noelle, Stephen, Patricia, Beth, Jeff, Mark, Matt, Josh, Brian, Kelsi, Matt, Ben, Andrea, Jordan, Ning, and Andrew, and our undergrad family: Sinan, Karli, Elliot, Kate, Cinthia, Ryan, and Jacques, we want to thank BC for spending so much of his short time on Earth with us.

We’ll never forget you.