I ended up walking out of this performance tonight because the really lousy accompanying music was way too loud for comfort. It was so loud, in fact, that it was being pretty seriously distorted by the sound system that wasn’t designed for that kind of use. It was bad enough that if I had been on an aisle then I would not have even waited for intermission. I don’t know if they just didn’t have monitors and couldn’t hear the music on stage, but that still isn’t an excuse for blasting their audience’s eardrums like that. If all you need is to hear your cues, you can get a low-end monitor for $50 that will do your performers better than trying to reflect the sound off the back of the theater and will make your work come across as much better produced. Hell, running the sound through a little boom box with a mic input will probably be as good as the sound was for your rehearsals. There may have been something worth watching if the sound were bearable, but I recall nothing about the performance but the assault on my ears.