Paying the Orchestra

You've hit on a sore point, for me personally. We are hoping to move our company from fully amateur towards becoming a co-operative company. Base funds need to build up a bit before we can swing into action properly and we explain this to everyone who wants to become involved in any of our productions. The standard model we want to use would mean anyone in a particular production would take a share of any profit, be they actor, musician, technician etc. However, when we were attempting to get a small cast musical up, we hit a snag. The MD we approached initially, an old friend and known quantity in terms of skills, etc. demanded to be paid a fee. They were not interested in anything else, said they would not be able to find musicians without paying them and seemed to think that only people studying at or graduated from, the local Con would do. Frankly this is rubbish. There are a number of societies and theatre groups who have managed to put on extremely high standard musicals in this city without any of the above. I personally was quite insulted at the attitude that "money=quality" which was stated. I guess what really got up my nose was that I have acquired many acting skills over the years, having started as an amateur, worked as a professional, etc. etc. and if co-operative or profit share is good enough for me it should be good enough for that person too. I was astonished at the arrogance. It may just be a personal gripe but I would rather everyone involved got paid something, or nothing at all. We all have skills and training, be they acting, music, tech. etc. etc. and they should be treated with the same consideration. Call me an idealist but ... By the way, we found an MD who was more than happy to consider the co-op model but the musical didn't get up due to casting. It's a murky world though, didn't solutions suit different folks/groups. If you have to pay people to get anyone at all, well...that's another story.