"Get out of Hell free"

My Fringe show has closed and cast & crew have all been given our "get out of Hell free" cards. The last show was the worst - a leaky pipe had shorted out half the sound board, so that we could only just hear the higher-pitched notes in the sound track. I think we should've given the audience a refund and a sympathy card for suffering through our attempts to sing along with a sound track we couldn't hear. The reviews were just short of scathing - the reviewers did keep in mind that they were reviewing people, with feelings, who were painfully aware of their shortcomings. I just checked the ratings of the 100+ Fringe shows - on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being "Pick of the Fringe", we were one of 4 shows to get a 1.

One lesson learned from this - I will do my utmost to avoid at all costs doing another musical with a canned sound track. Even when I did a show with our 2 accompanists behind the set, they could at least hear us well enough to adjust when we got out of synch with them. The best situation is a conductor you can see, waving that magic wand that keeps us all together (assuming we're paying attention to it, of course), but after this, I've learned NEVER to take live music for granted, even if they're placed where we can't see them. As someone else mentioned, it's easy to understand why the Broadway performers supported the musicians' strike!

Other lessons
- Check the MD's credentials to make sure he or she has done this before, successfully.
- If they can't come up w/ an audition accompanist, ask whether there'll be a rehearsal accompanist. If not, don't audition. (I admit it - trying to learn my music from an mp3 was a huge challenge, which I never met to my satisfaction.)
- Try to work with companies that tend to get an audition turn-out greater than the number of roles being cast. Stiff competition for roles tends to produce better performances than little or no competition.
- Working with the playwright can be challenging if said author/lyricist/composer can't maintain a degree of objectivity about his/her "baby".
- Theatrical talent and savvy can come in teenage packages.