I know plenty of jokes have been made about Patti’s own diction, but she’s not wrong here. I’ve been to so many shows recently with atrocious sound mixing, and/or actors with a modern pop sound that doesn’t lend itself to clear diction.
Honestly I’ve seen Patti LuPone live three times, in concert and in musicals, and haven’t had much trouble understanding her. And I didn’t go in already familiar with what she was singing. Her voice is definitely unique and unusual, but I’ve had more trouble understanding many other Broadway actors.
It's not limited to Broadway either. I saw Hadestown on the West End recently and couldn't understand a damn thing any time the trombone was playing because all I could hear was trombone
Most sane people exit audio production fast and get into related real industries that pay actual reliable salaries. That being said it would be hard to imagine someone running a major show sucks and isn't handicapped bad venue or speaker system they can't really make better with mixing.
I'm not sure when vocal coaches started teaching people (seems to be mostly tenors?) to sing with what can only be described as lockjaw but it's troubling
I don't mind the music but the tone and diction from most of the cast drives me up the wall
This issue is ever worse with touring casts. I have season tickets at a first run, major market city and the sound quality feels like a high school production half the time.
It's because they are at the mercy of whatever crappy sound system is in one of the hundreds of theatres around the country they have to perform in for their few days or weeks before moving on to the next one. And the show was not designed for that space.
Right but what I’m saying is that I am in a major market that has very famous, high quality theaters with high quality sound systems.
This is all a distinctly new issue in the last few years. I have been a season ticket holder for almost a decade and it didn’t used to be this bad.
Skill issue from tech and the actors involved and little to no support from a profit driven production company, likely. Industry is cooked at this point
I don't really know how it was "before" cause I'm youngish, but I do often feel like I need to listen to a cast recording several times before going to see a show.
If I'm not familiar with the music going in, I often feel like I need to focus purely on the words of the song so I don't miss anything. If I already know where the songs are going, I can pay more attention to the rest of what's going on
Same. I actually apologized to my wife during the intermission of Beetlejuice. They tried to cram SO many words into some of those lyrics, that understanding some of them was rough. I'd read the lyrics plenty of times, but even so, "Dead Mom" was a struggle to understand.
Doesn't help that the Lydias seem to be told to scream-sing that song as part of their direction.
You mean the "being young and female" bit?
Those were the first lyrics I ever had to look up once the musical theater bug bit me. Absolutely inscrutable. I don't know who did the lyrics for that show, but they are a little too in love with wordiness.
I watched the phantom of the opera movie the night before seeing the show. Glad I did because I watched the movie with subtitles. I would’ve been so lost during the show if I had gone in with virtually no context.
This seems to be a problem almost everywhere. On TV and local theatre... Music is almost always too loud and voices can't be heard.
And yes, even on American Idol this last season, most of the time you couldn't understand the singers. I call this singing a "pleasant murmur"
There is nothing like watching a pro shot musical or musical movie or action movie where you need to be in the remote at all times or else you’re either way too loud or way too quiet.
And everyone I have talked to about this has the same issue with movies & TV with music & sound effects being really loud and voices being too quiet, so I'm not sure why this is something that keeps happening when the complaint is so prevalent. I can appreciate it is harder in an old theatre to get a good balance everywhere, but movies and TV seem to be just choosing that.
Yeah, I hear ya... constantly turning up the volume to hear dialog and then rushing to turn it down during an explosion.
Here's a video with a sound mixer (2 mins in) , it's about people with good hearing wanting captions on--- and he basically says in part, they don't have the time or money to fine tune dialog to hear it properly. This still doesn't explain why other sounds are SO loud, but it's a start.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6u-f69-J-U
So, in part it does seem they are aware of the issue and you'd THINK hearing your actors plus not causing viewers to constantly mess with the volume would be a priority... hopefully it will be some day.
Bring back the transatlantic accent!!!
Jk, I know we're talking about sound mixing here, but I really find it funny how of all the videos I might find from musicals online the old ones are usually the ones most understandable. Even just watching a soap opera or something the dialogue is very low volume and whenever music comes in it maxes it out, it's terrible mixing.
This is why R's were rolled or flipped in transatlantic and pre-transatlantic acting dialects. Similarly, the oddly nasal, floaty and "creaky" falsetto head voice you often hear in old-timey singers was designed to project well through a megaphone, not for microphones.
I know! That's what I find so cool about it, English is not my native language so as a kid I used to love old timey movies where they talked in a transatlantic accent, or the Disney villains which often used it. It makes sense that it's the most understandable, even in potato quality recordings of Annie you can still get most of what they're singing for example.
As cool as it is and I wish it made more of a comeback though, I really hope they fix mixing issues. It makes for an unpleasant experience whenever your ears rattle from the music but have to strain to hear voices.
I remember there were moments in both Sweeney Todd and Hadestown where I wished they'd just turn the speakers off because the mix was awful and I would have actually been able to hear the actors better without amplification. I don't know if we need better live audio engineers or if broadway audio engineers are currently trying to emulate modern pop mixes poorly or what but something just isn't working compared to how it was 8 or so years ago.
I actually believe there is a very serious problem with hearing loss that is largely unknown by people with said hearing loss and under reported. I have observed in film forums that the captioned screenings tend to sell really well. When you have hearing loss you lose the high end of the audio spectrum which can lead to a large loss of intelligibility even though one might be able to "hear" most everything on paper.
I watch in surround sound almost exclusively and have been protecting my ears since around high school before I even went to a major concert.
A lot of successful people mixing your major shows are going to be people who either have protected their ears or are young enough to mix on a larger range of frequencies. I think a lot of complaining comes from people whose hearing is shit and they don't know it yet. being a sound engineer has a limited shelf life.
I saw interstellar and tenet on some no of the best IMAX screens in America and had no problem understanding them apart from general loudness. People bitched about these films obsessively.
Patti at her age probably can't hear anymore to make a judgement about audio
It was a revelation when I saw The Mousetrap in London. I was near the back of the stalls/orchestra and could hear everyone perfectly. Those people were not mic’d at all. I realize this was a play and not a musical but it was refreshing as hell to hear some actual projection going on. But London theater in general seemed to have this problem significantly less
Conversely, I saw an adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express in Berlin recently that suffered from the opposite problem: Because their normal venue was undergoing extensive renovations, the production was performed in an alternate house that was so big that it simply required amplification, yet they only used mics for the musical numbers and left the dialogue unamplified. Those were all highly experienced stage actors, but they were playing in a place that wasn’t designed for this, and so the dialogue ended up being a lot harder to understand than the songs.
UK drama schools focus a lot more on voice and projection training than US from what I’ve experienced/seen. A lot of the American MFA Actors were shocked that were on a degree adjacent to mine with the amount of focus on it. It’s changed a bit in recent years but Especially for older actors it was absolutely drummed into them in drama school
I also had a choir teacher from England, and she would tell us that the vocal placement of the Brits is naturally more “forward” than Americans. So when she wanted a brighter sound from us, she would sometimes tell us to pretend like we were British.
For clarification, it’s not a genetic thing, it’s about where their accent places the sound in their mouths.
Yeah it’s an accent placement thing albeit mostly with southern English accents or RP. When you’re learning those sorts of accents in drama school that’s one of the key things they tell you.
I normally sit in the Mezz or Balcony since poor and the amount of times I have had trouble understanding the lyrics is abysmal. I have no clue why the sound engineers don't sit up there to make sure that everything sounds good from all over the theater.
You don’t even need the engineer up there. An effective director will be watching the show from every conceivable angle through runs and should catch it.
I agree. I think the director while they are sitting on every seat for the sound should also pay close attention to the sightlines. I feel like with the some easy fixes some do the partial view seats could be way better. There is no reason why the extreme sides for Tommy for example are as bad as they are. Some seats are doomed but there are some seats at Here Lies Love that should have never been sold. I’m of the belief that if the partial view is more than 25% then a seat shouldn’t be sold without explicit mention of this from the box office especially for the boxes where you miss over half the show. They also should be informed before purchasing for lotto and rush. Let people make informed decisions if it is worth it.
I used to work in ticketing and customer services for a big theatre company that hosted national tours and special engagements at 3 different venues, the decision to sell partial view seats comes from the greed of producers. And it sucks with touring shows because usually we won’t know what sightlines will be like until the tour arrives the day before it opens. Sometimes people from the show will fly out to help us gauge sightlines before ticket sales, but it’s still a guess until the production loads in. I’ve had to fight for certain seats to not be sold because of how awful they were, even if they were sold at a discounted price through rush, lottery, or some discount site like TodayTix. And if they insisted on selling seats with <25%, I also had to fight for a more explicit limited view warning because I was tired of the customer service employees (and box office staff) getting berated by angry patrons.
I can totally see this and I am sorry you have to deal with it. I also don't like how producers pat themselves on the back for making theater accessible and then they do crap like this with horrible sound mixing and partial view for poor folks.
I appreciate that! Man, it was tough working there. lol. The producers really do think they’re being generous with these discounted PV/LV seats, but also know that they are completely taking advantage of less privileged patrons. Like how dare you charge $40+ for people to only see less than a 1/4 of the staging and then hide behind the vague warning of “limited view”. And as for sound mixing, I always found it so crazy that a production would just load-in the day before they open. There were definitely several shows we hosted that had atrocious mixing, and after enough complaints, they actually did do better.
Have you seen some of the sightlines for recent productions? It seems like directors just sit smack center of the orchestra and don't move for the entirety of the creative and rehearsal process :-/
It's like she says - a lack of training all around. It's not just about the creative fun stuff. There are so many technical things to learn in the performing arts. People forget that they're doing it to be seen by other people. That's the product. That's the end game. I don't care how much you felt that moment if it's missed by almost every person who came to see it!
Not sure how feasible that is in old theatres. Would probably depend on how good a job the venue did when they retrofitted the current speaker system.
But I’ve seen productions in modern houses with normally great acoustics where I still had a hard time figuring out the lyrics, simply because the mix sucked.
I felt embarrassed because the first time I saw Hamilton, I was in the balcony and had difficulty understanding what was being said (this was earlier in the run so I don’t believe there was a cast album out yet). Relieved (and sad) to hear this is a larger issue
For accessibility reasons I really wish they would do this anyway. I’m not hard of hearing but can have some processing issues and it would be nice to be able to read the lyrics too.
I'm not hard of hearing, but I do use the headphones that my local theater provides. It's a much better experience (and if you have someone next to your who is taking or singing along, it drowns them out)
My local touring house does this during one performance of each show, which happens to be my subscription evening. It has come in handy for many shows for sure.
From the college MT performers I know who are currently training, it’s already fucked. Nobody has any breath control, dancers are getting closer to high school in some tours than broadway, and the textual skill (reading into the fucking material) is basically gone. Only exception to this I’ve seen is the very, very high end programs that are entirely exclusionary except to a very few. It’s so, so unfortunate and a symptom of bad teaching and an even worse profit motive
You can absolutely tell the difference in a cast. I saw a touring show where one of the leads was incomprehensible and two others were crystal clear. Sound mixing is part of it, but Patti is right about technique.
It’s definitely clear who cares more. I’ve seen some performers who didn’t even have any strength to their voice until the second or third song. I’m not saying I’m the best singer ever, but if I were in a show where I had to sing, I’d at least be doing some vocal warm-ups beforehand.
This is all aggravated by the prevalence of sloppy lyrics. Poor rhyming and misplacement on music is taxing on the ear and makes it impossible to infer a missed word.
To be fair, not like you can infer a missed word in Sondheim’s works either lol
He’s a genius with lyrics of course, can’t say it’s a sloppy lyrics thing
Honestly there are a lot of factors at play with this. Some of it is the mix itself - and often, bad mixes can be attributed to bad directorial decisions. I don’t know an A1 or a sound designer who doesn’t understand how to make a show sound good and clear. But they’re bound by what the director wants, or what they think they want. Some theaters themselves have dogshit acoustics no matter how you lay out the speakers. Some actors don’t enunciate, or overproject, or fuck with their microphones after they’ve been placed. The room can be too humid, or too dry, and this noticeably affects how sound travels. So many variables!!
When shows have the money/time for it, the sound team will EQ their entire sound system before tech begins. Microphones are placed all over the house while things are played over the system, and this can help identify problem areas in the room. Not every show does this though.
FWIW, I don’t disagree with Patti that shows can be hard to hear. But I think it’s been a problem for a long time, and she’s looking at the past with rose colored glasses.
I used to do sound (but on a more casual local level) and there's a lot of issues. One is that a lot of the conductors/directors have spent a lot of time around loud noises and are expecting it or may have some hearing loss. The sound staff may be way too acclimated to loudness or have some hearing loss themselves.
The other issue is all the older patrons either can't hear and complain or they turn their hearing aids way up and make high pitched noises. So people get told to just crank things all the time.
I think the only songs I had issues with were don’t bet your heart which after hearing it on the album left me heartbroken I didn’t enjoy it as much live, woman is and the baronesses song in act II
Went into the recent Sweeney Todd production blind and it was a huge mistake...my partner and I couldn't understand like 70% of what was being said! It was awful.
I almost always listen to a show’s soundtrack before seeing it. (I mostly see touring productions) It ruins some surprise but I enjoy the show better when I am not struggling to make out the words.
We saw Sweeney and some like it hot last December and some like it hot was so incredibly clear and easy to understand. I didn’t preview the music at all and it was preferred by all four of us over sweeney, which has incredibly complex and beautiful music but we couldn’t make out all of the lyrics. Two of us previewed the soundtrack and we liked it more than the two that did not.
One thing I’ve heard is that composers should avoid outlining key plot points in big ensemble numbers, because the lyrics are harder to understand with so many people singing at once.
The problem is not just projection or diction. Sound mixing is terrible in many shows. And many new shows are orchestrated for a sound studio rather than a live singer. If you listen to older shows the orchestration was balanced for the type of voice. Now it often smothers the voice.
Some of the group Gatsby songs were so loud it was hard to distinguish words. The big band sound was nice but it definitely drowned and made the vocals sound fuzzy a few times.
OMG yes as soon as I saw the title of this post I immediately thought about the opening group number of Gatsby. Literally could not distinguish a word that the chorus was singing since the orchestra was so loud.
Unfortunately, louder music makes the audience “feel” more intensely so it’s a cheap trick to compensate for quality. Hence why all of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s amps go to 11.
For anyone that was lucky to see Once on Broadway, it was some of the best sound design I’ve heard in years. Clive Goodwin trusted the audience enough to embrace nuance. The way that mix was pulled back enough that you felt you were hearing it directly from singers in a live theater was fantastic and then allowing it to envelope you at key emotional moments made those moments truly special.
It's the opposite for me. If it is too loud, I shut down, and if I can't hear the words, I tune out or get frustrated.
Edit: responding to first sentence about louder music making you feel more intensely and thus thinking it means quality
Dear Patti,
“Fill me up with your heat, with your noise
With your dirt, overdo me
Let me dance to your beat, make it loud
Let it hurt, run it through me.”
Those are the lyrics. Please help us hear them.
Love,
Me
Yes, it is rather a pot and kettle situation, but for instance I literally couldn't understand a huge chunk of the lyrics when I went to see The Outsiders for the first time. Between the sound mixing and the accents/affectations, many of the lyrics were indecipherable.
Yes! I went to see Hadestown with my mom and sister. I’d heard the album many, many times but they hadn’t. They ended up not even really understanding what was going on and I even had trouble understanding the actors even though I knew all the words. Same thing happened when I saw Waitress on Broadway. Kind of pathetic that we paid all that money to be straining to understand anything.
I saw her in a concert in Florida during the early 2000s. At one point, she let go of the mic and sang without amplification, filling the theatre with her voice. It was thrilling.
I'm sure some of this has to do with the actors diction. My experience is a horrible unintelligible vocal mix from FOH. I can't imagine how hard it is to mix 20 or more headworn omnidirectional mics. But one headworn mic singing a lead part... turn it up. Even two headworn mics can be mixed loud enough to be intelligible. I also feel the PA deployment is poorly designed. Not enough PA to properly hit the balcony or the wings. So if you are not directly in front of the PA on the floor you're screwed. I have seen Hamilton, Cats and The Book of Mormon in RVA. All I kept thinking was, turn the damn vocal up. From the little I could hear the actors were projecting and singing with great diction. But for reasons I don't fully understand the vocals were buried in the mix. Hadestown was the only one that had a good vocal mix loud enough to understand. It was great both my wife and I were so happy to actually hear the lead vocals, it rocked. I think it's a FOH and audio design thing.
The sound problem Hamilton has is their insanely squeaky shoes. I wanted to cover my ears so many times when they were dancing, and I was a mile from the stage.
Haven't seen it, and have only heard a few numbers, but I suppose for performers who are somewhat lacking in classical training, a rap or spoken word score, with its melodic minimalism, makes it easier for the actor to focus on articulating and projecting the lyrics clearly
She’s not wrong but she’s the last person who should be running their mouth to complain about this. If projection and sound design were better in the good old days, then what’s her excuse?
When I saw the Hadestown tour, they turned off the mics for Eurydice and Persephone at the end for Raise Our Cups, presumably for aesthetics or whatever. I was sitting sixth row and the theater was dead quiet yet I still couldn’t hear them. Overreliance on modern tech isn’t doing any genre of music any favors.
Also, the laidbackness of modern pop means you can get away with just about anything in terms of lyrics, diction, enunciation, sound design, etc. Bring back quality control! What’s the point of singing if no one can understand what’s coming out of your mouth?
Every since the musical scene switched around to 2010s pop every show has gotten worse, including most pickups of older shows with revivals full of bright tenors with no vibrato
Honestly she's not wrong. I've been to a couple shows where I couldn't understand a damn thing. Illinoise off-Broadway was the worst recent offender but it's not unique in that. If all I can hear is the orchestra how am I supposed to understand lyrics?? I don't know that lack of training for the singers factors into the equation (it might, I'm just saying I don't know either way) but it's become an issue for me at least.
No one is trained properly any more. Because singers are miked they think they don't need to know how to project.
I saw Cheno 8 or so years ago in concert at Carnegie Hall. We were sitting all the way up i the balcony which is four levels up (and kind of terrifying if you're in the front row. It's a long way down.) Every word, every lyric clear as a bell. And for the last song, she removed the mic, basically said this is how it's done and proceeded to bring the house down. Every single person could understand and hear her even though she's wasn't miked. (Granted, the acoustics at Carnegie are great.) It's the difference between knowing how to sing properly and not having a clue.
This is starting young. I work at a community college and we have a lot of shows, both for the community and our students, and ppl are not being taught how to project. My boss and I talk about it a lot and how it makes it hard to mix bc there's only so much we can do without setting off feedback and such.
It was actually a beautiful surprise, a kid oriented musical theatre group was in our space a week or two ago, and the director told us no mics, she wants her kids to project. It was heard easily, and these kids were better at projecting than our own adult students.
Ok I’m not a fan of Patti throwing everybody under the bus when she’s criticizing the state of musical theater but I’ll say this…11 years ago, I went to go see Pippin, having listened to the album multiple times…and man, could I not understand what Terrence Mann was singing. Not a dealbreaker but definitely a con in an otherwise very enjoyable production.
We should consider the perspective of the audio/sound engineers.
My dad did audio visual for conferences for his entire career and there are many different types of microphones, receivers, etc. I feel so
Bad in educational settings where the sound team isn’t troubleshooting there mics, or when their tech supervisor isn’t getting into the weeds of troubleshooting. Even old mics can be fixed and made better, highly recommend this guide and looking up others https://content-files.shure.com/Pubs/audio-systems-guide-for-theater-performances/theater_guide_ea.pdf
She’s got a point. Took my partner to see Les Mis when it toured here a couple years ago…then we watched the movie at home for comparison. They enjoyed the stage show but after watching the movie, they were like “okay I understand things better now that I can hear it.”
💀 Touring tickets often cost just as much as seeing it on Broadway, but the house is way bigger. I wish they could get the sound figured out.
I could not understand A WORD during the Water for Elephants Tony's performance. I think the reason I haven't noticed it as much is I'm seeing shows I already know all the words to, but in watching new shows I'm REALLY struggling to understand them.
i saw the outsiders recently, and the lack of diction there was insane- ponyboy’s actor was damn near slurring his words so it was
almost impossible to understand him and the rest of the cast wasn’t much better. it was really confusing to me because how is the director letting this slide? like someone has to have noticed how it’s impossible to understand half of what he sings
this is part of the reason why i can't justify going to broadway shoes anymore. for the amount i'm paying, even in the cheap seats, i expect to see the Best of the Best. That goes for the actors on stage and everyone working behind the scenes as well. The sound mixing is horrible, the singing is mushy, and honestly I haven't seen exceptional dancing in a show in a very, very long time. The standards have been lowered to an extreme degree when you compare modern shows to the classics.
The sound mix in so many shows is horrible…… and the difference between pop singing and theater singing was never learned. The head mics are great, but can encourage lazy consonants.
I saw Sunset Blvd 3 times at the Savoy a couple months ago sitting in different sections and I kid you not it was probably some of the best sound mixing I’ve ever heard in my life. I could understand single word no matter where I sat. It was so refreshing
Recently, every show that comes to Milwaukee’s “Marcus Performing Arts Center” has had TERRIBLE sound mixing. I’m so glad I knew the words to “Come From Away” a few years ago because my parents had no idea what was going on (the accents didn’t help).
I'm sure that Patti is absolutely correct.
But I had to laugh: I just watched again, last week, the concert production of Candide in which she appeared as the Old Lady, and for the life of me, between her diction and the accent she used, what she was singing a good deal of the time, heaven knows. (And I know the story, music, and lyrics.) But she sang it so well. ;)
The sound mix in A Strange Loop was god awful and completely overpowered the actors, couldn't understand a word they were singing. And yet they got nominated for a Tony for Sound I couldn't beleive it.
My husband and I recently went to see "A Strange Loop" and had a hard time not only hearing the lyrics, but figuring out who was singing what, at times. Which was frustrating, because the lyrics in that show are kind of important. 😊
She sounds like I sound, as guy who marched DCI 35 years ago, bitching about modern drum corps -- which also use electronics and amplification. It's not "real drum corps," we sometimes say. Just like the dinosaurs that came before us accused our version of the activity of being "not real drum corps."
Just like I'm sure a lot of old football players bitch about concussion protocols ("I'll tell ya, in my day we knew how to play hurt.")
The truth is we all miss the good old days, and we all wish we were the hot new thing, and that everybody continued doing things the way we did them.
I never liked Pattie LuPone anyway. I'm not sure why.
I know plenty of jokes have been made about Patti’s own diction, but she’s not wrong here. I’ve been to so many shows recently with atrocious sound mixing, and/or actors with a modern pop sound that doesn’t lend itself to clear diction.
Honestly I’ve seen Patti LuPone live three times, in concert and in musicals, and haven’t had much trouble understanding her. And I didn’t go in already familiar with what she was singing. Her voice is definitely unique and unusual, but I’ve had more trouble understanding many other Broadway actors.
It's not limited to Broadway either. I saw Hadestown on the West End recently and couldn't understand a damn thing any time the trombone was playing because all I could hear was trombone
That trombone was so loud!
I know but I fucking love it.
Most sane people exit audio production fast and get into related real industries that pay actual reliable salaries. That being said it would be hard to imagine someone running a major show sucks and isn't handicapped bad venue or speaker system they can't really make better with mixing.
I noticed the pop singing/diction in The Outsiders especially.
Unbelievable. I only heard a bit of it on some videos and I'm like what is this trash
I'm not sure when vocal coaches started teaching people (seems to be mostly tenors?) to sing with what can only be described as lockjaw but it's troubling I don't mind the music but the tone and diction from most of the cast drives me up the wall
This issue is ever worse with touring casts. I have season tickets at a first run, major market city and the sound quality feels like a high school production half the time.
It's because they are at the mercy of whatever crappy sound system is in one of the hundreds of theatres around the country they have to perform in for their few days or weeks before moving on to the next one. And the show was not designed for that space.
Right but what I’m saying is that I am in a major market that has very famous, high quality theaters with high quality sound systems. This is all a distinctly new issue in the last few years. I have been a season ticket holder for almost a decade and it didn’t used to be this bad.
Skill issue from tech and the actors involved and little to no support from a profit driven production company, likely. Industry is cooked at this point
I feel like my ears are still ringing from *Tommy*
I don't really know how it was "before" cause I'm youngish, but I do often feel like I need to listen to a cast recording several times before going to see a show. If I'm not familiar with the music going in, I often feel like I need to focus purely on the words of the song so I don't miss anything. If I already know where the songs are going, I can pay more attention to the rest of what's going on
Same. I actually apologized to my wife during the intermission of Beetlejuice. They tried to cram SO many words into some of those lyrics, that understanding some of them was rough. I'd read the lyrics plenty of times, but even so, "Dead Mom" was a struggle to understand. Doesn't help that the Lydias seem to be told to scream-sing that song as part of their direction.
I had some trouble with the line "clocks tick and phones don't ring" in Invisible. I couldn't make out a single word of it.
Same problem in "Say My Name", they rush over the not-quite-right word so fast that the joke doesn't work.
You mean the "being young and female" bit? Those were the first lyrics I ever had to look up once the musical theater bug bit me. Absolutely inscrutable. I don't know who did the lyrics for that show, but they are a little too in love with wordiness.
Same
I watched the phantom of the opera movie the night before seeing the show. Glad I did because I watched the movie with subtitles. I would’ve been so lost during the show if I had gone in with virtually no context.
They're turning musicals back into opera
This seems to be a problem almost everywhere. On TV and local theatre... Music is almost always too loud and voices can't be heard. And yes, even on American Idol this last season, most of the time you couldn't understand the singers. I call this singing a "pleasant murmur"
There is nothing like watching a pro shot musical or musical movie or action movie where you need to be in the remote at all times or else you’re either way too loud or way too quiet.
Yes! Even my TV! I can’t watch anything on a television any more because EVERYTHING is overpowering whoever is speaking.
ESPECIALLY with tv, oh my god.
And everyone I have talked to about this has the same issue with movies & TV with music & sound effects being really loud and voices being too quiet, so I'm not sure why this is something that keeps happening when the complaint is so prevalent. I can appreciate it is harder in an old theatre to get a good balance everywhere, but movies and TV seem to be just choosing that.
Yeah, I hear ya... constantly turning up the volume to hear dialog and then rushing to turn it down during an explosion. Here's a video with a sound mixer (2 mins in) , it's about people with good hearing wanting captions on--- and he basically says in part, they don't have the time or money to fine tune dialog to hear it properly. This still doesn't explain why other sounds are SO loud, but it's a start. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6u-f69-J-U So, in part it does seem they are aware of the issue and you'd THINK hearing your actors plus not causing viewers to constantly mess with the volume would be a priority... hopefully it will be some day.
The number of times I need the subtitles... Sure, my hearing isn't perfect, but I can watch an older movie or show at the same volume without issue.
Bring back the transatlantic accent!!! Jk, I know we're talking about sound mixing here, but I really find it funny how of all the videos I might find from musicals online the old ones are usually the ones most understandable. Even just watching a soap opera or something the dialogue is very low volume and whenever music comes in it maxes it out, it's terrible mixing.
This is why R's were rolled or flipped in transatlantic and pre-transatlantic acting dialects. Similarly, the oddly nasal, floaty and "creaky" falsetto head voice you often hear in old-timey singers was designed to project well through a megaphone, not for microphones.
I know! That's what I find so cool about it, English is not my native language so as a kid I used to love old timey movies where they talked in a transatlantic accent, or the Disney villains which often used it. It makes sense that it's the most understandable, even in potato quality recordings of Annie you can still get most of what they're singing for example. As cool as it is and I wish it made more of a comeback though, I really hope they fix mixing issues. It makes for an unpleasant experience whenever your ears rattle from the music but have to strain to hear voices.
Upvote for Transatlantic accent. Use it all the time in my theatre productions. (Modern settings aside)
ASMR influence? :p
I remember there were moments in both Sweeney Todd and Hadestown where I wished they'd just turn the speakers off because the mix was awful and I would have actually been able to hear the actors better without amplification. I don't know if we need better live audio engineers or if broadway audio engineers are currently trying to emulate modern pop mixes poorly or what but something just isn't working compared to how it was 8 or so years ago.
I actually believe there is a very serious problem with hearing loss that is largely unknown by people with said hearing loss and under reported. I have observed in film forums that the captioned screenings tend to sell really well. When you have hearing loss you lose the high end of the audio spectrum which can lead to a large loss of intelligibility even though one might be able to "hear" most everything on paper. I watch in surround sound almost exclusively and have been protecting my ears since around high school before I even went to a major concert. A lot of successful people mixing your major shows are going to be people who either have protected their ears or are young enough to mix on a larger range of frequencies. I think a lot of complaining comes from people whose hearing is shit and they don't know it yet. being a sound engineer has a limited shelf life. I saw interstellar and tenet on some no of the best IMAX screens in America and had no problem understanding them apart from general loudness. People bitched about these films obsessively. Patti at her age probably can't hear anymore to make a judgement about audio
She’s not wrong
It was a revelation when I saw The Mousetrap in London. I was near the back of the stalls/orchestra and could hear everyone perfectly. Those people were not mic’d at all. I realize this was a play and not a musical but it was refreshing as hell to hear some actual projection going on. But London theater in general seemed to have this problem significantly less
Conversely, I saw an adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express in Berlin recently that suffered from the opposite problem: Because their normal venue was undergoing extensive renovations, the production was performed in an alternate house that was so big that it simply required amplification, yet they only used mics for the musical numbers and left the dialogue unamplified. Those were all highly experienced stage actors, but they were playing in a place that wasn’t designed for this, and so the dialogue ended up being a lot harder to understand than the songs.
UK drama schools focus a lot more on voice and projection training than US from what I’ve experienced/seen. A lot of the American MFA Actors were shocked that were on a degree adjacent to mine with the amount of focus on it. It’s changed a bit in recent years but Especially for older actors it was absolutely drummed into them in drama school
I also had a choir teacher from England, and she would tell us that the vocal placement of the Brits is naturally more “forward” than Americans. So when she wanted a brighter sound from us, she would sometimes tell us to pretend like we were British. For clarification, it’s not a genetic thing, it’s about where their accent places the sound in their mouths.
Yeah it’s an accent placement thing albeit mostly with southern English accents or RP. When you’re learning those sorts of accents in drama school that’s one of the key things they tell you.
I normally sit in the Mezz or Balcony since poor and the amount of times I have had trouble understanding the lyrics is abysmal. I have no clue why the sound engineers don't sit up there to make sure that everything sounds good from all over the theater.
You don’t even need the engineer up there. An effective director will be watching the show from every conceivable angle through runs and should catch it.
I agree. I think the director while they are sitting on every seat for the sound should also pay close attention to the sightlines. I feel like with the some easy fixes some do the partial view seats could be way better. There is no reason why the extreme sides for Tommy for example are as bad as they are. Some seats are doomed but there are some seats at Here Lies Love that should have never been sold. I’m of the belief that if the partial view is more than 25% then a seat shouldn’t be sold without explicit mention of this from the box office especially for the boxes where you miss over half the show. They also should be informed before purchasing for lotto and rush. Let people make informed decisions if it is worth it.
I used to work in ticketing and customer services for a big theatre company that hosted national tours and special engagements at 3 different venues, the decision to sell partial view seats comes from the greed of producers. And it sucks with touring shows because usually we won’t know what sightlines will be like until the tour arrives the day before it opens. Sometimes people from the show will fly out to help us gauge sightlines before ticket sales, but it’s still a guess until the production loads in. I’ve had to fight for certain seats to not be sold because of how awful they were, even if they were sold at a discounted price through rush, lottery, or some discount site like TodayTix. And if they insisted on selling seats with <25%, I also had to fight for a more explicit limited view warning because I was tired of the customer service employees (and box office staff) getting berated by angry patrons.
I can totally see this and I am sorry you have to deal with it. I also don't like how producers pat themselves on the back for making theater accessible and then they do crap like this with horrible sound mixing and partial view for poor folks.
I appreciate that! Man, it was tough working there. lol. The producers really do think they’re being generous with these discounted PV/LV seats, but also know that they are completely taking advantage of less privileged patrons. Like how dare you charge $40+ for people to only see less than a 1/4 of the staging and then hide behind the vague warning of “limited view”. And as for sound mixing, I always found it so crazy that a production would just load-in the day before they open. There were definitely several shows we hosted that had atrocious mixing, and after enough complaints, they actually did do better.
I mean that is what the running around the theater is *actually* for but good directors can perceive several choices at once
Oh I completely agree. I was just saying while they are at it throw that in too.
Have you seen some of the sightlines for recent productions? It seems like directors just sit smack center of the orchestra and don't move for the entirety of the creative and rehearsal process :-/
It's like she says - a lack of training all around. It's not just about the creative fun stuff. There are so many technical things to learn in the performing arts. People forget that they're doing it to be seen by other people. That's the product. That's the end game. I don't care how much you felt that moment if it's missed by almost every person who came to see it!
I haven’t seen a Broadway show in about 2 years but I have been working with Broadway directors regionally and you are correct.
Whole industry is cooked LOL
Not sure how feasible that is in old theatres. Would probably depend on how good a job the venue did when they retrofitted the current speaker system. But I’ve seen productions in modern houses with normally great acoustics where I still had a hard time figuring out the lyrics, simply because the mix sucked.
I felt embarrassed because the first time I saw Hamilton, I was in the balcony and had difficulty understanding what was being said (this was earlier in the run so I don’t believe there was a cast album out yet). Relieved (and sad) to hear this is a larger issue
Had this problem with the outsiders. Sounds like they’re singing in cursive.
I wanted to grab Pony Boy by the shoulders and scream "Open your damn mouth when you sing!"
They need to start putting subtitle screens in front of the stage. It’s really that bad
For accessibility reasons I really wish they would do this anyway. I’m not hard of hearing but can have some processing issues and it would be nice to be able to read the lyrics too.
They had them when I saw Six and it was SO HELPFUL. I had no idea what they said at first.
I'm not hard of hearing, but I do use the headphones that my local theater provides. It's a much better experience (and if you have someone next to your who is taking or singing along, it drowns them out)
A ton of opera houses do this already for translation reasons! The tech is there!
My local touring house does this during one performance of each show, which happens to be my subscription evening. It has come in handy for many shows for sure.
I mean they do it at the opera! Why not for MT?
They have the galapro subtitle devices at DC theaters and I think some New York. But I wish they’d be part of the show so i don’t have to use a device
There are fewer classically trained singers every generation. Mics are said to make it irrelevant. It’s that simple.
And that’s a shame, honestly. It’s just gotten worse every year with more and more breathy cursive singing becoming the popular option
It is incredibly annoying. That’s why we have to give good performers their dues all the more.
Good luck though when the casting directors have a hard on for the shittiest vocal parts you’ve ever heard because it’s unique
Oof. Don’t get me started on casting directors…
I can’t stand cursive breathy singing. Hopefully it never makes its way to Broadway.
From the college MT performers I know who are currently training, it’s already fucked. Nobody has any breath control, dancers are getting closer to high school in some tours than broadway, and the textual skill (reading into the fucking material) is basically gone. Only exception to this I’ve seen is the very, very high end programs that are entirely exclusionary except to a very few. It’s so, so unfortunate and a symptom of bad teaching and an even worse profit motive
You can absolutely tell the difference in a cast. I saw a touring show where one of the leads was incomprehensible and two others were crystal clear. Sound mixing is part of it, but Patti is right about technique.
It’s definitely clear who cares more. I’ve seen some performers who didn’t even have any strength to their voice until the second or third song. I’m not saying I’m the best singer ever, but if I were in a show where I had to sing, I’d at least be doing some vocal warm-ups beforehand.
I agree, there were several shows from this season that I could not understand entire sentences that were said.
This is all aggravated by the prevalence of sloppy lyrics. Poor rhyming and misplacement on music is taxing on the ear and makes it impossible to infer a missed word.
To be fair, not like you can infer a missed word in Sondheim’s works either lol He’s a genius with lyrics of course, can’t say it’s a sloppy lyrics thing
I said bad lyrics frustrate audibility, not that they’re the sole cause.
Honestly there are a lot of factors at play with this. Some of it is the mix itself - and often, bad mixes can be attributed to bad directorial decisions. I don’t know an A1 or a sound designer who doesn’t understand how to make a show sound good and clear. But they’re bound by what the director wants, or what they think they want. Some theaters themselves have dogshit acoustics no matter how you lay out the speakers. Some actors don’t enunciate, or overproject, or fuck with their microphones after they’ve been placed. The room can be too humid, or too dry, and this noticeably affects how sound travels. So many variables!! When shows have the money/time for it, the sound team will EQ their entire sound system before tech begins. Microphones are placed all over the house while things are played over the system, and this can help identify problem areas in the room. Not every show does this though. FWIW, I don’t disagree with Patti that shows can be hard to hear. But I think it’s been a problem for a long time, and she’s looking at the past with rose colored glasses.
I used to do sound (but on a more casual local level) and there's a lot of issues. One is that a lot of the conductors/directors have spent a lot of time around loud noises and are expecting it or may have some hearing loss. The sound staff may be way too acclimated to loudness or have some hearing loss themselves. The other issue is all the older patrons either can't hear and complain or they turn their hearing aids way up and make high pitched noises. So people get told to just crank things all the time.
Thank you for this!
I agree with this, listening to the Lempicka album the first few times I noticed how much I missed
Lempicka was really not great in this department. The sound was so bad it ruined the show for me
I think the only songs I had issues with were don’t bet your heart which after hearing it on the album left me heartbroken I didn’t enjoy it as much live, woman is and the baronesses song in act II
Not just in theater, but in movies too.
Tenet is infamous for this
Went into the recent Sweeney Todd production blind and it was a huge mistake...my partner and I couldn't understand like 70% of what was being said! It was awful.
Agree. I went in already knowing the show, but it astounded me how messed up the sound mixing was. I was seated in the back of the orchestra
Same here. Could not understand most of the lyrics during the parts sung by the company.
100% same experience
Felt this a lil bit during Hell’s Kitchen.
I almost always listen to a show’s soundtrack before seeing it. (I mostly see touring productions) It ruins some surprise but I enjoy the show better when I am not struggling to make out the words. We saw Sweeney and some like it hot last December and some like it hot was so incredibly clear and easy to understand. I didn’t preview the music at all and it was preferred by all four of us over sweeney, which has incredibly complex and beautiful music but we couldn’t make out all of the lyrics. Two of us previewed the soundtrack and we liked it more than the two that did not.
I am the same. I like it much better when I know all the words already.
One thing I’ve heard is that composers should avoid outlining key plot points in big ensemble numbers, because the lyrics are harder to understand with so many people singing at once.
The problem is not just projection or diction. Sound mixing is terrible in many shows. And many new shows are orchestrated for a sound studio rather than a live singer. If you listen to older shows the orchestration was balanced for the type of voice. Now it often smothers the voice.
Some of the group Gatsby songs were so loud it was hard to distinguish words. The big band sound was nice but it definitely drowned and made the vocals sound fuzzy a few times.
OMG yes as soon as I saw the title of this post I immediately thought about the opening group number of Gatsby. Literally could not distinguish a word that the chorus was singing since the orchestra was so loud.
Unfortunately, louder music makes the audience “feel” more intensely so it’s a cheap trick to compensate for quality. Hence why all of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s amps go to 11. For anyone that was lucky to see Once on Broadway, it was some of the best sound design I’ve heard in years. Clive Goodwin trusted the audience enough to embrace nuance. The way that mix was pulled back enough that you felt you were hearing it directly from singers in a live theater was fantastic and then allowing it to envelope you at key emotional moments made those moments truly special.
It's the opposite for me. If it is too loud, I shut down, and if I can't hear the words, I tune out or get frustrated. Edit: responding to first sentence about louder music making you feel more intensely and thus thinking it means quality
Dear Patti, “Fill me up with your heat, with your noise With your dirt, overdo me Let me dance to your beat, make it loud Let it hurt, run it through me.” Those are the lyrics. Please help us hear them. Love, Me
I had no idea that's what she said 😭😭 dying... Though to be fair she was belting insane notes in the song.
Ironically sound mixing meant i couldn’t understand much of her last production of company.
I can hear the Met singers from fifth balcony. Doesnt matter because I usually dont know the language.
Yes, it is rather a pot and kettle situation, but for instance I literally couldn't understand a huge chunk of the lyrics when I went to see The Outsiders for the first time. Between the sound mixing and the accents/affectations, many of the lyrics were indecipherable.
I had trouble hearing some of the Outsiders too. I am critical of its sound design win.
Yes! I went to see Hadestown with my mom and sister. I’d heard the album many, many times but they hadn’t. They ended up not even really understanding what was going on and I even had trouble understanding the actors even though I knew all the words. Same thing happened when I saw Waitress on Broadway. Kind of pathetic that we paid all that money to be straining to understand anything.
Part of the reason why I don’t like Hadestown is 100% due to the fact I couldn’t hear most of it very clearly when I saw it on tour.
I saw her in a concert in Florida during the early 2000s. At one point, she let go of the mic and sang without amplification, filling the theatre with her voice. It was thrilling.
I'm sure some of this has to do with the actors diction. My experience is a horrible unintelligible vocal mix from FOH. I can't imagine how hard it is to mix 20 or more headworn omnidirectional mics. But one headworn mic singing a lead part... turn it up. Even two headworn mics can be mixed loud enough to be intelligible. I also feel the PA deployment is poorly designed. Not enough PA to properly hit the balcony or the wings. So if you are not directly in front of the PA on the floor you're screwed. I have seen Hamilton, Cats and The Book of Mormon in RVA. All I kept thinking was, turn the damn vocal up. From the little I could hear the actors were projecting and singing with great diction. But for reasons I don't fully understand the vocals were buried in the mix. Hadestown was the only one that had a good vocal mix loud enough to understand. It was great both my wife and I were so happy to actually hear the lead vocals, it rocked. I think it's a FOH and audio design thing.
It’s funny, Hamilton is probably the most lyrically dense Broadway show and I never had a problem understanding anyone.
The sound problem Hamilton has is their insanely squeaky shoes. I wanted to cover my ears so many times when they were dancing, and I was a mile from the stage.
I thought the squeaks came from the rotating stage?
Oh! Maybe! I just immediately thought it sounded like a basketball game, so I assumed shoes, but it could have been the rotating stage.
I'm curious now. Lol. I heard it on tour too.
Haven't seen it, and have only heard a few numbers, but I suppose for performers who are somewhat lacking in classical training, a rap or spoken word score, with its melodic minimalism, makes it easier for the actor to focus on articulating and projecting the lyrics clearly
She’s not wrong but she’s the last person who should be running their mouth to complain about this. If projection and sound design were better in the good old days, then what’s her excuse? When I saw the Hadestown tour, they turned off the mics for Eurydice and Persephone at the end for Raise Our Cups, presumably for aesthetics or whatever. I was sitting sixth row and the theater was dead quiet yet I still couldn’t hear them. Overreliance on modern tech isn’t doing any genre of music any favors. Also, the laidbackness of modern pop means you can get away with just about anything in terms of lyrics, diction, enunciation, sound design, etc. Bring back quality control! What’s the point of singing if no one can understand what’s coming out of your mouth?
Every since the musical scene switched around to 2010s pop every show has gotten worse, including most pickups of older shows with revivals full of bright tenors with no vibrato
Yeah, I read this article and thought okay yes she makes sense, totally legit. But also... yikes
Honestly she's not wrong. I've been to a couple shows where I couldn't understand a damn thing. Illinoise off-Broadway was the worst recent offender but it's not unique in that. If all I can hear is the orchestra how am I supposed to understand lyrics?? I don't know that lack of training for the singers factors into the equation (it might, I'm just saying I don't know either way) but it's become an issue for me at least.
No one is trained properly any more. Because singers are miked they think they don't need to know how to project. I saw Cheno 8 or so years ago in concert at Carnegie Hall. We were sitting all the way up i the balcony which is four levels up (and kind of terrifying if you're in the front row. It's a long way down.) Every word, every lyric clear as a bell. And for the last song, she removed the mic, basically said this is how it's done and proceeded to bring the house down. Every single person could understand and hear her even though she's wasn't miked. (Granted, the acoustics at Carnegie are great.) It's the difference between knowing how to sing properly and not having a clue.
This is starting young. I work at a community college and we have a lot of shows, both for the community and our students, and ppl are not being taught how to project. My boss and I talk about it a lot and how it makes it hard to mix bc there's only so much we can do without setting off feedback and such. It was actually a beautiful surprise, a kid oriented musical theatre group was in our space a week or two ago, and the director told us no mics, she wants her kids to project. It was heard easily, and these kids were better at projecting than our own adult students.
You can't mix what isn't there.
To quote her from Sunset Boulevard: “I’m a fla-na-na-na-na!” (written as: “I love flannel on a man”)
https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-know-just-made-a-gr-1825121606/
Ok I’m not a fan of Patti throwing everybody under the bus when she’s criticizing the state of musical theater but I’ll say this…11 years ago, I went to go see Pippin, having listened to the album multiple times…and man, could I not understand what Terrence Mann was singing. Not a dealbreaker but definitely a con in an otherwise very enjoyable production.
This is so true. I hope someone listens to her.
We should consider the perspective of the audio/sound engineers. My dad did audio visual for conferences for his entire career and there are many different types of microphones, receivers, etc. I feel so Bad in educational settings where the sound team isn’t troubleshooting there mics, or when their tech supervisor isn’t getting into the weeds of troubleshooting. Even old mics can be fixed and made better, highly recommend this guide and looking up others https://content-files.shure.com/Pubs/audio-systems-guide-for-theater-performances/theater_guide_ea.pdf
This is why I always listen to at least some of the cast album first. I don’t want to miss the performance just trying to hear the words
It's the diction.
She’s got a point. Took my partner to see Les Mis when it toured here a couple years ago…then we watched the movie at home for comparison. They enjoyed the stage show but after watching the movie, they were like “okay I understand things better now that I can hear it.” 💀 Touring tickets often cost just as much as seeing it on Broadway, but the house is way bigger. I wish they could get the sound figured out.
Yes!!! In most cases I feel like the singers are fine on their own, the background music is just too loud and drowns them out.
She's not wrong
I could not understand A WORD during the Water for Elephants Tony's performance. I think the reason I haven't noticed it as much is I'm seeing shows I already know all the words to, but in watching new shows I'm REALLY struggling to understand them.
i saw the outsiders recently, and the lack of diction there was insane- ponyboy’s actor was damn near slurring his words so it was almost impossible to understand him and the rest of the cast wasn’t much better. it was really confusing to me because how is the director letting this slide? like someone has to have noticed how it’s impossible to understand half of what he sings
this is part of the reason why i can't justify going to broadway shoes anymore. for the amount i'm paying, even in the cheap seats, i expect to see the Best of the Best. That goes for the actors on stage and everyone working behind the scenes as well. The sound mixing is horrible, the singing is mushy, and honestly I haven't seen exceptional dancing in a show in a very, very long time. The standards have been lowered to an extreme degree when you compare modern shows to the classics.
The sound mix in so many shows is horrible…… and the difference between pop singing and theater singing was never learned. The head mics are great, but can encourage lazy consonants.
Oh Patti, [never change](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1731708404/patti-lupone-who-do-you-think-you-are-t?click_key=b777ab5f227610736ca1e2bdb5aeed3239a15bd6%3A1731708404&click_sum=e65eb1aa&external=1&rec_type=cs&ref=landingpage_similar_listing_top-5)!
Preach!!!! This is for EVERYTHING.
While i'm not gonna go off on how I can't understand a single word of what patti says. I think she's right, like I struggle to hear performances.
She’s not wrong. I’ve had many performances where the sound balance wasn’t good and I had difficulty understanding the lyrics.
I saw Sunset Blvd 3 times at the Savoy a couple months ago sitting in different sections and I kid you not it was probably some of the best sound mixing I’ve ever heard in my life. I could understand single word no matter where I sat. It was so refreshing
She needs to sit down before she finds out.
me watching both Mathilda and Anastacia... could not understand a single thing... even asked my partner and he couldn't understand nary a word
I had the same problem with Mathilda!!
Recently, every show that comes to Milwaukee’s “Marcus Performing Arts Center” has had TERRIBLE sound mixing. I’m so glad I knew the words to “Come From Away” a few years ago because my parents had no idea what was going on (the accents didn’t help).
I stopped going to your shows in CT because I can’t understand anything. I figured it was the acoustics in the building
I'm sure that Patti is absolutely correct. But I had to laugh: I just watched again, last week, the concert production of Candide in which she appeared as the Old Lady, and for the life of me, between her diction and the accent she used, what she was singing a good deal of the time, heaven knows. (And I know the story, music, and lyrics.) But she sang it so well. ;)
The sound mix in A Strange Loop was god awful and completely overpowered the actors, couldn't understand a word they were singing. And yet they got nominated for a Tony for Sound I couldn't beleive it.
She's right- mics distort the sound.
My husband and I recently went to see "A Strange Loop" and had a hard time not only hearing the lyrics, but figuring out who was singing what, at times. Which was frustrating, because the lyrics in that show are kind of important. 😊
She's not incorrect but I'm not sure she's the best person to throw this stone, lest she shatter her glass house!
She sounds like I sound, as guy who marched DCI 35 years ago, bitching about modern drum corps -- which also use electronics and amplification. It's not "real drum corps," we sometimes say. Just like the dinosaurs that came before us accused our version of the activity of being "not real drum corps." Just like I'm sure a lot of old football players bitch about concussion protocols ("I'll tell ya, in my day we knew how to play hurt.") The truth is we all miss the good old days, and we all wish we were the hot new thing, and that everybody continued doing things the way we did them. I never liked Pattie LuPone anyway. I'm not sure why.
Call the out Patti because WHEEEEW
To Patti I say “Whazzznew BuenuzAruzzzzz?!”
Says someone with some of the absolute worst diction in the business..... 
Maybe she’s just old?