Several years ago, I ran a theater program in a high school in Minneapolis. To subsize the program, I rented the auditorium to various groups such as bodybuilders and traveling theater companies. The old 100-year-old auditorium was huge, and seated almost 1,000 people. Acoustically, it was a nightmare. Voices were difficult to hear in the balcony, and the sound that could be heard bounced all over the room. Fortunately, we were able to amplify the stage, and the problem was minimized.
One afternoon, a traveling theater company was presenting a play, and that very same auditorium was packed with busloads of students from various schools. I stood at the back of the huge room, and was amazed at how crisp the actor’s voices were. Every word was clear, every sentence perfectly audible, and things were going well. Well, except for the fact that the actors weren’t holding for laughs, and they seemed to be rushing through the play without much regard for how the audience was responding