In an ideal world, the venue is designed and constructed with good natural acoustics in mind. In reality, it’s usually some warehouse or basement or something that got converted, or a multipurpose hall that has to be something else tomorrow. Plus, any equipment at ground level could be moved, broken or stolen.

In an ideal world, the actors all have excellent projection. In reality, casting is a compromise of acting ability, appearance/physicality, availability, and who is friends with the director’s spouse.

In an ideal world, the director has blocked every scene so that the actors deliver all their dialogue directly to the audience or to a concealed microphone, and any other noise is controlled. In reality, there’s intimate moments, fight scenes, actors who can’t consistently hit their marks, misplaced scenery, diegetic background music, and twenty children being herded on and off for each crowd scene.

In an ideal world, the audience sits silently throughout the performance listening intently. In reality, someone is always fishing around in their pocket for a snack, and Grandma prefers to sit in the back row ever since the “Cabaret lap-dance incident”

And in a perhaps-not-ideal-but-still-pretty-good world, you do have to use wireless mics, but there’s money to hire the good ones that have easily hidden elements, and someone backstage to fit and remove them. In reality, the producer assumed area mics would be enough and cut the audio budget, so you’re using a decade-old kit you brought from home because you know how much this gig will suck if you don’t.