 Dugan changed from lighting design to sound design in 1967. The state of sound design at the time was mostly occasional sound effects performed live or played back on record players or tape machines. Dugan's first efforts in sound involved designing sound solutions for the Shakespeare festival in San Diego and for the American Conservatory Theatre (ACT) in San Francisco. Dugan's complex and atmospheric theatrical soundscapes led to a new title: during ACT's 1968 – 69 season, he was the first regional theatre person to be called a "sound designer". He presented a paper about his sound design to the Audio Engineering Society (AES) at their 37th convention, and his paper was published in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society in December 1969. Dugan described a system in which the signals from three stereo tape players were routed to ten loudspeaker zones in the theater.
