Oh dear. A few technical difficulties tonight leave poor Alice (Bev) with a silent record player, so she has to float about the stage writhing to imaginary music whilst she prepares nibbles for the party - and this section opens the play. Things worsen when the volume climbs to absurd, distorted levels during the Elvis and sinks unexpectedly low later. All we can do is sit there pretending it's not happening whilst our Stage Manager (SM) Alex struggles with the sound desk, forty rows of seats away.
Still, such glitches are fantastically rare, and it's miles better than the days when every sound cue was on a separate tape, and if you knocked the pile over the actors might get birdsong, bongos or the Beatles, who knew? And there was nothing like the sound of a tape stretching to knacker the dramatic illusion.
In ten years I suppose all SM's will have the show soundtrack on a minuscule flash drive that you just plug and play - either that or they'll be hiring live orchestras again. Watch this space for news...but of course, I'll be replaced by CGI or a hologram long before then. Hmmm.
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