Our 400-seat theatre often plays host to children's theatre productions requiring lots of sound reinforcement for the child actors involved. In addition to having to try to get the kiddies to understand that they don't have to grab the lavaliere capsule and shove it into their mouths to be heard, we also have to make sure that they don't step all over any boundary microphones that we might place on the front of the stage. On one show, after hanging some overhead microphones and placing three PCCs on the front edge of the stage, I gave a short speech to the cast about the placement of the floor microphones. I pointed out their locations, and even marked them clearly with bright yellow gaffer's tape. This still didn't stop the little darlings from stepping all over them. Every time one of the kids would step on one of the mics, you could hear it come booming over the sound system, and I would make an announcement over the God Mic, asking the cast to be careful of the microphones on the floor, pointing out that they were very expensive, and that we needed them all to be working well for the cast's show.
After about the fifth time that this happened, one of the stage mothers stood up from her seat in the auditorium, and with her hands on her hips shouted at me in the booth, "Well! If those microphones are SO expensive, then why do you have them on the floor in the first place?!?"
Charles R. Kaiser
ckaiser@newmarket.ca
