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The Soundscape of a play helps to establish the atmosphere, the setting, and the energy of a performance. Sound Effects can be anything from doorbells, bear roars, and rain sound to breaking celery or balsa wood to make super-battle-damage sounds. The SD collects all the sounds and music a production calls for in a medium that can be used in the space in which the play is performed and then makes sure the "Sounds" sound right in the space during the performance.
So You Want to be a Sound Designer? Do this: read the script, make an exhaustive list of possible cues, talk to the director, get possible sounds from Rinaldi, test sounds with the director, then test them in the theatre. Not necessarily in that order, and read below for more details.
Basics
Music is self-explanatory, but it is not the sound designer's job to compose original scores (except when it is). Useful software include Audacity, Adobe Audition, and Reaper. QLAB (for mac) or Ableton Live (for mac and windows) are good for writing sound queues.
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