By Jackie Demaline
Enquirer staff writer

Today David Budke will spend long hours preparing for OCTAFEST, the annual Ohio Community Theatre Association conference that will bring more than 500 enthusiasts from throughout Ohio, Northern Kentucky, eastern Indiana and West Virginia to Cincinnati for the holiday weekend.

Budke wants to be heard, not seen

If you go: Who: David Budke Lives: He is house-sitting in North College Hill with six cats. "Four came with the house. I'm basically a dog person." Favorite sound effect to date: "A dead body hitting a boat on the Ganges," for Ovation Theatre's A Perfect Ganesh. What most of us don't know about sound design: "Basically, I'm on stage every minute of the show." He's just as happy that we don't know it: "The biggest compliment is when people don't realize (I'm on stage). I want the sound design to be seamless to the performance. I don't want people to notice I'm pushing buttons and doing things." What: OCTAFEST, Ohio Community Theatre Association Conference When: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday Where: Holiday Inn-Eastgate, 4501 Eastgate Blvd., Union Township Tickets: $60 at the door includes excerpts and workshops. Information: Terri Wilson, (513) 374-0585.

Fifteen excerpts - comedies, dramas, classics and musicals - will be in competition throughout the two days, surrounded by 24 workshops, all open to the public.

Five of the competing companies are from Greater Cincinnati.

Always prepared

This year Budke is liaison for all sound matters for OCTAFEST, the guy who will help make sure visiting theater companies will be heard loud and clear in competition, even as he works two competing shows of his own.

"There will be emergencies," Budke promises. It's live theater, there always are. But his "crash cart" will be at the ready. There will be a sound mixer, a CD player, cassette tapes of sound effects, batteries and, the secret weapon of sound designers everywhere, lots of varieties of tape, for everything from masking tape for wires to Band-Aids for anchoring microphones to a performer's back.

Budke moved to Cincinnati from his native Kansas seven years ago and signed up for community theater duty as a way to make friends.

The idea was to work set construction. In no time he'd been drafted for sound work, for which he had a natural affinity. The secret, along with tape, says Budke, "is knowing how to listen."

Budke has been designing sound ever since, as many as 10 shows a season for community and semi-pro companies, including Beechmont Players, Tri-County Players, Milford Theatre Guilde and Cincinnati Music Theatre

The job, Budke explains, "is being responsible for anything that's heard - microphones, sound effects, music for before the show and intermission."

Can't turn down a friend

Budke, 41, admits set construction is still his favorite - "power tools and lots of wood" - but "I have a hard time saying no to friends."

Saturday, he'll work with Newport-based Footlighters' Man of la Mancha. The excerpt will be less harrowing than the production, when a big cast sometimes had to swap a limited number of mikes.

On Sunday he's responsible for sound for another big musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, by Newport-based Falcon Theatre. Area companies will dominate Sunday afternoon: Mariemont Players with Jitters, the Drama Workshop in Belles and The Fantasticks by Lebanon Theatre Company.

Budke will take off Labor Day but then he's right back to work. His autumn gigs include Gypsy for Footlighters and Stephen King's Misery for Ovation Theatre.

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com