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| re: This is the artistic choice of the authors | |
| Posted by: ablankpage 08:58 am EDT 05/26/23 | |
| In reply to: re: This is the artistic choice of the authors - Singapore/Fling 07:55 pm EDT 05/25/23 | |
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| I feel like you haven't seen the show, right? It seems like you don't understand how it works. It's not live music, it's karaoke. It's not a musical, it's a karaoke musical, which is the entire concept/set up for the performance. The producers haven't found a way around anything, they're just producing the musical as it was written and performed in New York, London, Seattle. It's not like it's been on tour with an orchestra and they're sneakily trying to cut them for the Broadway run to save some cash. Musicians were never an employee of the show. So yeah, to your argument, if a play used motion capture or pre-recorded actors as part of their concept, that would make sense to produce it as such because that's the artistic vision for that play. |
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| re: This is the artistic choice of the authors | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 11:56 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
| In reply to: re: This is the artistic choice of the authors - ablankpage 08:58 am EDT 05/26/23 | |
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| Well, it’s not karaoke, and the show’s insistence to the contrary is neither conceptual coherent nor culturally competent. And no one has yet offered a clear, compelling argument why live musicians, unseen by the audience, can’t provide the same experience as a pre-recorded track. Every day, authors have to deal with the ways that the demands of live theater as an industrial medium compromises their intent. If Byrne and Slim can’t achieve their intent on Broadway, then they should not have brought the show to Broadway. There is a model, provided by Sleep No More, of how to do immersive installation theater outside of the normal system. They didn’t choose to go that route. |
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| re: This is the artistic choice of the authors | |
| Posted by: ablankpage 03:22 pm EDT 05/27/23 | |
| In reply to: re: This is the artistic choice of the authors - Singapore/Fling 11:56 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
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| I'm not sure where you're getting the authority to decide if it is "conceptual coherent" since you've clearly never seen the show or "culturally competent" since you're white. But cool, thanks for your opinion! | |
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| re: This is the artistic choice of the authors | |
| Posted by: student_rush 09:35 am EDT 05/26/23 | |
| In reply to: re: This is the artistic choice of the authors - ablankpage 08:58 am EDT 05/26/23 | |
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| This is exactly my point. I am not arguing that producers should be able to put musicals on Broadway with reduced orchestras and/or tracking simply as a means of reducing overhead costs. I would be appalled at a production of SWEENEY TODD that was performed to backing tracks. I even hate when smaller productions use prerecorded music as an obvious cost-cutting measure (SPACE DOGS at MCC literally sounded like karaoke -- it was abysmal). I am fiercely advocating for the author's intentions to become fully realized on our biggest stages in America. The authors specifically created a narrative and theatrical universe that doesn't involve any live musicians. I'm the bad guy for supporting artist intent? (Also, I love the ad hominem attacks -- I'm fiercely pro-labor and a member of both AEA and SDC.) |
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| re: This is the artistic choice of the authors | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 11:40 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
| In reply to: re: This is the artistic choice of the authors - student_rush 09:35 am EDT 05/26/23 | |
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| My apologies, this is the first post you’ve written that’s given any indication that you’re pro-labor, so I didn’t know. | |
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| re: This is the artistic choice of the authors | |
| Posted by: selmerboy 04:54 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
| In reply to: re: This is the artistic choice of the authors - student_rush 09:35 am EDT 05/26/23 | |
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| Forgive, me, but I think you’re naive to think that this decision is about “artistic intent.” In cases where that argument can legitimately be made, the Union has been willing to negotiate a special situations agreement. This production seeks to use zero musicians and instead use a recording made by real musicians - lots of them, in fact, in addition to orchestrators and arrangers, were needed to create the recordings - so the sound of a large band is absolutely a part of the show. Playing a recording rather than using and paying musicians can only be seen as an economic end-run around the CBA. | |
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| re: A point that you may be missing. | |
| Posted by: NewtonUK 03:38 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
| In reply to: re: This is the artistic choice of the authors - student_rush 09:35 am EDT 05/26/23 | |
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| Until 1993 or so, every Broadway theatre had a minimum number of musicians that had to be hired - no exceptions. This harks back to the days when every theatre had an orchestra. Overtires and incidental music for plays was always played live (a rule that you will still see followed in London at the NT, and at the RSC) So, up until the 1990s, if you produced a play in a theatre with an 8 musician minimum, you had to hire 8 musicians to not play. The first workaround in a contract was that theatres decided whether they were playhouses or musical houses. Playhouses became exempt from a minimum number of musicians at all. But then if a musical went into a 'playhouse', they would have to pay a penalty, since that theatre was exempted from a musician minimum because it was a 'playhouse' only. I believe this rule is gone now, as there are almost no plays, and traditional playhouses like The Booth, the Schoenfeld, the JAcobs, the Golden, The Belasco, the Longacre, the Cort/Jones, the Atkinson/Horne, the Barrymore now frequently house musicals. Its about jobs. This is live theatre. Live theatres have orchestras. In the rest of the world rules may be different, but on Broadway the rules are clear - all producers know his - to wilfully ignore the rules as if they don't affect you is a form of madness. As I pointed out elsewhere, the tracks employ up to 19 musicians each. A simple solution would be to say one has to pay each of those musicians on the tracks a weekly salary as if they were playing in the pit. And they all have to join AFM 801 which i am willing to wager very few of them do. Broadway is a business with 17 Labor Unions. Some have rules which are difficult. They don't disappear because you don't like the rules. Rule changes are negotiated and arbitrated. David Byrne knows this. Hal Luftig knows this. The Public knows this. A compromise will be reached, some musicians will be put on contract. If you produce a musical under some contract, you dont need swings. If you come to Broadway you do. |
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| re: A point that you may be missing. | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 03:51 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
| In reply to: re: A point that you may be missing. - NewtonUK 03:38 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
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| NewtonUK, I think that's not altogether correct. For decades, the minimum for nonmusicals was four. If a play had more than a certain amount of live music, the union might decide that it should be classified as a musical and might demand that the minimum for musicals be hired, but that happened very rarely. An example would be The Tempest, way back in 1945. Later, if the rule was still in place, I imagine Marat/Sade would have been classified as a musical according to the union. But otherwise, even in the biggest houses (and the Broadway, the Uris/Gershwin, and the Majestic have all sometimes housed plays), the minimum was four for nonmusicals. | |
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| re: A point that you may be missing. | |
| Posted by: ablankpage 03:27 pm EDT 05/27/23 | |
| In reply to: re: A point that you may be missing. - AlanScott 03:51 pm EDT 05/26/23 | |
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| Totally off topic, but I'm curious if you know the answer. How did it work for John Doyle's Sweeney Todd and Company? Did the producers have to pay for a minimum of musicians, or did the cast join the musicians' union? | |
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| re: A point that you may be missing. | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 07:29 pm EDT 05/27/23 | |
| In reply to: re: A point that you may be missing. - ablankpage 03:27 pm EDT 05/27/23 | |
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| If memory serves, the casts of Sweeney and Company had to join the musicians union. | |
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| re: A point that you may be missing. | |
| Posted by: mikem 11:02 am EDT 05/30/23 | |
| In reply to: re: A point that you may be missing. - AlanScott 07:29 pm EDT 05/27/23 | |
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| I'm pretty sure they had to join the musicians union. IIRC, I believe the minimum salary at the time of Sweeney at least was higher for musicians than for actors, so that may have benefited some of them (although they had to pay union dues twice, so it may not have helped in the end, and they may all have been paid more than minimum anyway). | |
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| re: A point that you may be missing. | |
| Posted by: simbo 05:48 pm EDT 05/27/23 | |
| In reply to: re: A point that you may be missing. - ablankpage 03:27 pm EDT 05/27/23 | |
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| Similar query for "Once" and anythign else that's used cast as musicians (e.g. "I love my Wife" and "Pump Boys and Dinettes") | |
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