ReviewJournal.com: "Live music has been slowly disappearing from the community theater scene, and after years of chastising the playhouses, I'm starting to think the musicians are responsible.
As most of us know, community theaters rarely pay participants. Here and there you may have find a director, union actor or a professional designer, but pretty much the pay stub is either a paltry stipend or zilch. So it's surprising to learn that the exception to all this cultural generosity is the musician."
10 comments:
Um... It is disappointing to hear this trend, but it is sadder to know it is true. If live music completely disappeared from the theatre, it would not be a musical anymore. I think I would not go to see the show so often as I used to.
On the other hand, I sometimes doubt that theatre itself really need sets, lights, and music (or sound). If there are actors or singers, that might be enough to gather people to make money as a show. However, it is really my sorrow to as a sound man and also musical lover that productions starting cutting budget from music.
Under current era of recession, the way for theatre industry to survive is to compromise. Of course, musicians are expensive to hire, but what about the royalty to produce musicals at local theaters? While I need to study management field, I think we still have to pay a lot of money to the original creators over and over again...
Somebody fill me in about the royalty... What percentage of whole budget goes to royalty?
This article never explains why musicians are the only ones getting paid. I wonder if these companies are using union musicians or not. They seem like they would be too small to, but I know that the musicians union is one of the strongest entertainment unions that exist. This might explain the pay check. It is completely understandable that community theaters are starting to cut musicals and live music from their productions due to the high cost of hiring the musicians. For a theater that small the musicians (a relatively fixed cost) are a much bigger portion of the pie than in larger regional theaters. Hopefully people will come to their senses and realize that it is better for everyone to have live music be a part of live performances, but maybe they won't.
I don't see why musicians claim that canned music is ruining them when their demand for pay is the biggest thing standing in the way of live music at community theaters. Why would a theater spend thousands on musicians when their lead actors aren't being compensated at all? It seems that this is a trend that has to be actively combated; it's not going to fix itself. Either there has to be a more vocal and well-known group of musicians that will work for free, or the expectations of musicians wishing to work in community theater have to change.
I think this is a bummer, and I'm a big fan of live music, but the rhetoric against recorded music doesn't usually seem to make sense to me. When there isn't time or money to hire live musicians, using a recording is perfectly legitimate, especially given that most of the organizations that represent musicians are pretty violent about pushing copyright issues on recordings. So much of their rhetoric is based on the fact that recording is an important revenue stream for musicians, that it doesn't make sense to hear them complain about the use of that music.
I believe that the use of recorded music, completely counteracts the "itness" of theatre. Theatre is unique in that every night is different and there is a true interaction between performers and audience. If there is an element of recorded music, that spontaneity is lost.
While I understand that many companies simply do not have the funds to pay for a live band, and in that case, I believe that recorded music is acceptable. However, there is simply no substitute for an entire production happening live in front of you.
So very true.
CD's don't talk back to you when you ask them to do something, they don't need cliplights at 150%, and they sound the same every night.
On the other hand, there's nothing like a live orchestra. The quality is unmatchable, and the personality varies with each performance. A CD can't react to moments on stage. Even MIDI instruments sound fake to me.
Live music adds so much of the life to a musical- there is a clear difference in energy when you see a musical with recorded sound. But this article makes a good argument that this is not the fault of the creative team- it is a decision they are forced into by the musicians. This is a vicious cycle that has been created- at some point we started paying musicians, and the few that need to be payed for their work keep expecting it, putting those willing to volunteer into the awkward position of making their peers seem greedy, etc. The article does present the solution of a network of musicians willing to work for free in community theater, and utilizing that network. At a school such as CMU, the beginnings of such a network could begin to appear.
This is really disappointing to hear about. Live music is a great to have when doing a musical, and simply having a recording is just not the same. I understand the constraints money wise, and obviously comprises should be made. It just seems weird that if musicians want to participate in musical theater, that they aren't willing to make a compromise and take a pay cut, especially in these economic times, in order to have the opportunity to participate in theater, especially when many people within the theater are doing things for less and simply for free in order to get their foot in the door.
As Chris said, it doesn't explain why musicians get paid and no one else does. What makes them more important? I can understand that they can't do it if they aren't getting paid, because economically everyone is hurting... but then the same goes for everyone else involved. Everyone else should get paid as well. There are very few people within our industry that can afford to do shows without any compensation, so I would really like to know what makes the musicians more important than everyone else involved. Yes, live musicians add something to the experience that can't be replaced by a recording, but so do designers, and of course you can't have theatre without live actors. I wonder how this habit came about.
I think the two things said in this article are ridiculous. It's not fair that musicians are the only people paid when taking part in community theatre, and it's also not right to use pro-recorded music in a musical. A large part of what makes a musical so exciting is the live music. I don't think that it's fair that musicians are insisting on being paid in a theatre setting where no one is. I think that the heads of these theatre's should be looking harder, because I'm sure that there are musicians who would be willing to do it for free, but they just accepted the fact that all musicians get paid, and now they can't afford it.
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