Anyone who’s into theater has suffered through it. Mame is singing "My Best Beau" to Patrick. Or Freddy is warbling "On the Street Where You Live" with all his heart. Or Tony Esposito is telling his Rosabella that "My Heart Is So Full of You." Then....

The wireless body mike is at it again.

Whether it’s amplifying a tender ballad to a volume suitable for a rap concert, or making every fine voice on stage sound as if it’s coming out of a Beatlemania-vintage transistor radio, this instrument of Satan has insinuated itself into every part of musical theater. It is a cancer that has infested every performing venue of any size in the USA, and now threatens to invade the heretofore sacrosanct territory of opera and operetta.

Yes, I know that there are good, conscientious sound technicians out there who carefully test each body mike before the show, and monitor sound levels during the performance to insure that everything sounds just right. I’ve worked with two of them. [Make that three.  See the Candide Page.]  But, as near as I can tell, for every careful sound man at work in theater, there are at least ten who hand out the mikes, set the speaker levels, and head over to the bar next door to see how many beers they can down in three hours. Meanwhile, the folks who have paid as much as $75.00 for their seats are wincing through every feedback, stuffing Kleenex in their ears in hopes of keeping their hearing intact until 11:00, or suddenly straining to catch that important bit of dialogue after the sound system goes down.

Poor sound isn’t the problem of the struggling regional theater or low-rent community playhouse. I’ve heard nasty noises in otherwise lavishly appointed Broadway-grade musicals. I’ve heard all the excuses, too, of TV-raised audiences who are used to in-your-face sound, or old folks who love Golden Age musicals, but don’t hear as well as they once did. I’ll even concede that amplification has its place in "Tommy" and "Rent," and in techno-theater extravaganzas like the Lloyd Webber "Phantom of the Opera."

But I say: If you can’t make yourself heard, you don’t belong on stage! Let’s eliminate this electronic barrier between actor and audience! Let’s train the audience to listen to every little sound onstage, to know once again the magic that happens in the cathedrals and chapels we call live theater.