Oh, been around that little circle so many times. We'd lose a mic in the middle of a number. They'd yell at me and tell me to yell at the cast and make sure they all did mic check. Me; not the SM, not anyone with pull. The cast would amble out, half of them holding the mic on with a finger because they hadn't finished make-up, and the "really important stars" would stay in their dressing rooms because they were above it all. They'd all be passive-aggressive dragging their feet and it would burn up all the time I needed to actually fix things. And I'd never find an issue, because of course I test the units every night before they go out, AND I
PFL the lot of them before curtain AND before key entrances.
So all the repairs I was doing would go on lunch, home, and other unpaid hours. And I'd keep the cheap mics working for another week and everyone would say "Isn't it so good we were smart enough to tell you that you needed to do a mic check?"
Until one of the chorus snagged the
cord during a
quick-change (that they weren't given enough time to do, or a dresser, because yelling at people to just do it right was so effective, right?) And sometimes my "too important for this petty bullshit" stars would leave the mic in the dressing room, skip warm-ups, hang out in back out of RF range and show up five seconds before their entrance when all I can do then is look at the dead
channel and sigh.
(Oh, and don't EVEN try to tell the powers that be that this person skipped mic check. "HE/SHE is a Very Professional Actor and would always do everything they are supposed to. How dare you even suggest otherwise!")
Oddly enough, that's not even the worst. The worst is when you DO get the director or MD running mic check for you. They get the entire cast to
line up and sing -- without warming up, without a pianist so they are singing so off
pitch they are out of their range (the ones that aren't "trying something new because I can't do it on
stage.") And idiot Director/Music demands my operator
trim the
gain on each and every one, throwing out the settings that worked when they were singing the show in front of an audience in favor for tuning everything to whatever they are doing in this ludicrous check.
There are situations where mic check works. When it works, I will ask for it, I will do it. There are also too many situations where certain higher-ups are doing Cargo Cult sound; they heard the word, they think they know what it is and they think it is the magic bullet that keeps that pirate radio station from firing up out of the blue at 8:13 on a Friday night with 20,000 butts in seats to hear that lovely, lovely whoosh as three mics
drop signal.