I've worked in a few Equity houses that have crappy contracts so actors are called at 1/2 hour... so... no mic check. Not that big of a deal in reality if you have a decent tech period.
Even in the biggest of equity houses, actors are called at half hour unless there is a fight
call or makeup need.
As for
sound check, I work predominately on large-scale musicals. Day to Day
sound check entails the A2 battery'ing up all the microphones and doing an initial check on their own via a listening station in the A2 Rack. This is the first step that catches any shorts or sweat outs in the
element. The listening station falls parallel to the main mult output that runs into the
Console's inputs. Usually I have a parallel split
snake, mics input the spit, 1 parallel output hits the listening station and another parallel output hits the
console (I wish I had photos, but they are custom made by Masque Sound and are the Go-To in NYC unless you are on a cheap
PRG show in which case they use really sub-par
Toa Listening Stations or are on a newer show that is using the fancy Ma2chbox MADI Listening Stations). After that check, the mics are brought on-stage and the A2 talks into each mic just by holding them, and the A1 cracks them into the main PA to ensure integrity of the signal path. The only time I pull an actor out on to the
stage before half hour is typically when I sub into a mix position on a show and have a new cast member I didn't get to meet or listen to during a put-in rehearsal. I'll have them run through a portion of their dialogue and then run through a song, really just so I know where to
throw my faders and to get a feel for how
dynamic they are.
It is the A2's job to ensure positioning -- typically at places
call the A2 will run through the actors and make sure positioning looks good and than they will be at the listening station just solo'ing in actors to make sure it sounds good.
I generally never have a "day 1"
sound check with actors, I'll dial their EQ in as we tech. If I have a designer that insists on a Day 1 actors on
stage mic check, then I will do the same the entire process when we have put-in rehearsals for understudies. However with automated consoles these days, I generally have a static global EQ on the mic and then input delay and EQ thrown on scenes as actors move around
stage and sound changes.
This all being said, when I tour I have an actors on
stage sound check at hour before half without costumes just to dial in the mics to the room every time we hit a new
venue, so any stop longer than a day we never do actors on
stage mic check again - I generally take about 30 seconds an actor and we know exactly what songs we are going to hit. I'll start out with a massive ensemble number and
knock out the entire ensemble in about 90 seconds to 2 minutes as I
lay out the
console with a Male and Female Ensemble Bus (further convoluted at times when I make groups for both ear rig and head rig and male and female) and then work my way down the leads taking a
bit more time -- all in all I can get through a 30 person cast in about 7-10 minutes if my A2 is good and has pre-checked all the mics.