Paying the Orchestra

There may be some who have wondered where I was, on this my favourite topic- getting paid. Well I have resisted till now, but I'm off to foreign climes again, and have work to avoid before I go! :-) Couple of points- 1. most am shows- the theatre tech is "doing their job" the crew are "doing their job" and usually, the musicians are "doing their job" VERY often the entire cast (or close to) are made up of -students, mums and dads, and other asst 'amateurs' or simply people indulging a hobby. Sometimes, but not often, they are professional actors "doing their job". In this final case, the actor can, as I indeed do as a musoe, choose to do a free (monetarily) show. They might do it because they really love the show, or they're helping out a friend, doing a role that will really push them and develop them as an actor. This is a form of payment. However, to expect myself or any other professional musician to 'do their job' for free is simply short sighted. Not to ask, but to expect. It would be like expecting an accountant to do your books for free, or having having a lawyer draw up your theatre companies books for free. You can ask, and some will out of interest in the arts, or wanting to help. You can't expect. If you do, you risk getting someone who bodges the job, or when you are desperate to get something finished they have an unfortunate busy time at their firm. You end up second in line. Or third. Why a skilled musician, and I'm sure this is not a forum where I need to explain the vast time and effort that goes into learning the skills required (certainly more than becoming an accountant or lawyer, with far less guarantee of work/income) should be expected to work for free is beyond me. 2. If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. I recently did a show where as usual they paid the band. However, also as usual, they paid an insultingly low fee. I think the entire band were currently-studying music students. The regular problems arose with people turning up when they could/wanted. Deps who'd never even seen the score or even knew the show were brought into do perform some shows. Of course,the pay rate dictated that no self-respecting 'professional' was around. So more students. This caused regular problems for those of us onstage, as we had no idea if the band would be doing the same thing it did in the last show. Unlike the cast, the band had not rehearsed for 3 months to iron out any potential problems in advance, and it in my opinion insulted the audience who had all paid well over $30 to be there. I have been to many shows where it was obvious that the band was there almost under protest, often because they were either desperate for work that paid anything at all, or too young/inexperienced to have yet gained awareness of their personal value. 3. Often, not anyone can turn up and play these scores. Someone above discussed their completely am band, and that they played Grease, South Pacific, Iolanthe, Oklahoma. With respect to the players involved none of these are particularly difficult scores. I'd like to hear the am band play West side or something similar...but that's beside the point unless your co. does that production. Congrats to having a system that works. I note you're in a country region. Anyone who wants to be a pro muso does not hang around in their country town. Many perfectly serviceable musoes will get some other training/job, but will still desire the experience they had of making music at school or similar. Thus these shows provide the outlet. I have always found this far more difficult to make happen in cities. I am also sure that you rehearse them far more than the average pro-am does in the city. 4. Musicals run at night and weekends. Funnily enough, that is often when us professional musoes make money. We need to eat and pay bills too. Why should any talented artist agree to starve for their art, simply because another artist does? Just because the acting industry is not nearly where the musicians are in terms of locking down rights, does that mean us musicians should drop our rights and standards? I say this not to throw up friction, but merely because I believe that if we all starve together, we all starve... Let's not begin to think about the dancers either, because that industry makes actors look like well-paid royalty. 5. A good band will clean up much mess. When the band rocks, the cast play better. The audience is more forgiving. The show is simply far better. If you want your musical to succeed, deal with the fact that your band will have to sound good. This means finding people with the skills to do it. Sorry folks, but the vast majority of musicians at best don't care about musicals, at worst they hate them with a passion. This means you don't have the same base of goodwill upon which to draw to fill your band as you do have for your cast. If you have not budgeted for the necessary professional expertise to pull off your show, you haven't done your job properly. If you can't afford the expertise, you can't do your show. This has me itching to go into a lateral thread about Australians and their desire to spend money they don't have, and the coming economic disaster that will result, but I resist. Pick a show you can manage with the skills and professional base available to you, resource it properly, and then bust your balls doing it well. This in the long run will do far more to aid us all in our dreams of a viable and thriving theatre industry than anything else. I finish with my real-life experience of this very issue. I MD'd a production of Les Mis in Mt Isa, a city in the middle of the north-western deserts of Queensland. This was my first MD job, and I took it reluctantly, as I had wanted to be onstage. Unfortunately I could not commit fully to the entire rehearsal period, and so was asked (with my conducting background) to at least prep the band and conduct the performances. I took on the full MD role. I chose to do this unpaid, as the experience was incredibly valuable. I also, for good measure, spent a fair amount of money flying to and from Perth, which was my home base, to make as much of the rehearsal period as I could. (My wife had a job in Mt Isa, thus I was already doing a fair amount of travel between the two!) The cast was incredible, many of the principals of incredibly high quality both as actors and singers, and the chorus produced a sound as good as or better than most of the pro-ams I have heard in the big city... However, my band was a collection of students, hobby players, and various music teachers from around the town and region. My repiteur drove regularly hundreds of kms for rehearsals. But I could not get close to filling all the required instrument spots, and apart from a couple of very strong players (including an ex-concertmaster on violin and a former fullbright scholar on reeds) it was a very inexperienced, though eager, band. In hindsight I needed to spend the amount of time on the band that I did on the cast. I had foolishly presumed that the band would, like all musicians I'd worked with to that point, be good enough players to put it together themselves. They weren't. This in my opinion almost crippled an incredible cast and significantly hindered the show's impact for audiences. It also made my experience of conducting this 3+ hours show very difficult, as I was expending so much energy keeping the band intact whilst trying to keep the cast comfortable. It is the only regret I have about the show. A pro band wasn't possible in that town. However, if I couldn't have those skillsets that were so necessary, I needed to be able to work the band as long and hard as I had the cast. I don't know many MD's out there with the skills, time and desire to do this work. I also don't know if this time and work would have made these musicians good enough to pull the show off anyway. A horrible but true cliche involving sow's ears and purses comes to mind. Anyways, as usual I have been too long-winded. Nev It's the simple things stupid...