Here Lies Love and Live Musicians
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Blindbutlerdeafmaid
Swing Joined: 8/15/13
#1Here Lies Love and Live Musicians
Posted: 5/25/23 at 3:13pm
Does anyone know how or why Here Lies Love can only have ONE live musician in a theater whose minimum is surely higher than 15?
Are they REALLY paying 14+ "walkers"?
My socials blew up this morning over it and I feel like I'm missing something. SURELY, a twenty-plus mission dollar musical directed by Alex Timbers can't possibly be opening with ONE musician. Right?
#2Here Lies Love and Live Musicians
Posted: 5/25/23 at 3:22pm
The Broadway Theatre requires 19 musicians. My understanding is that you cannot hire walkers. In previous productions, three actors played the finale live, but it is merely one song.
Blindbutlerdeafmaid
Swing Joined: 8/15/13
#3Here Lies Love and Live Musicians
Posted: 5/25/23 at 3:32pm
So, did the AFM cave on this one? or do 16 lucky musicians show up every night and sit backstage and babysit QLab? ha ha ha (Okay, fine, Ableton)
#4Here Lies Love and Live Musicians
Posted: 5/25/23 at 3:36pm
No. I imagine it hasn’t been resolved, production is dragging its feet, and they’ll just open against union wishes because a decision hasn’t been made yet. Then union pickets and public outcry will lead to the show closing before they hire a single union musician. Sadly, that looks like a possibility. A terrible precedent. And I want this production to succeed.
ErmengardeStopSniveling
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/20/18
#5Here Lies Love and Live Musicians
Posted: 5/25/23 at 3:40pm
AFM is much more willing to make concessions now based on the needs of the score, but usually not for zero musicians. Wasn't there a bunch of hubbub surrounding AMERICAN PSYCHO a few years ago because they wanted to just use a keyboardist who controlled the electronic music system? That ended up having 4 musicians.
I'm all for large orchestras when a score calls for it, but I have mixed feelings about these rules. On one hand, the house minimums allow SOME LIKE IT HOT and NEW YORK NEW YORK to have those sounds and not be reduced to 12 players due to beancounters. On the other hand, it's an antiquated rule when a score like this utilizes electronic music as part of its artistry.
We don't have minimum numbers for actors or authors based on number of seats, so why should they exist for musicians?
Blindbutlerdeafmaid
Swing Joined: 8/15/13
#6Here Lies Love and Live Musicians
Posted: 5/25/23 at 3:45pm
HeyMrMusic said: "And I want this production to succeed."
I do too. So much hope for the future of commercial musical theater with this one. Sadly, it leaves me feeling like every producer in town is calling Hal Luftig to see how he managed to open one of the biggest, most exciting musicals in a long time with ... tracks.
Also, where's Equity on this one? One would think that if anyone would want to battle the erosion of any other union's contracts it'd be Equity. Especially, as they push to Expand their jurisdictions and add more contracts (understudies and swings) to their existing ones.
Is there really that solid of an aesthetic reason for tracks on this one? The off-Broadway album doesn't seem to make the case for it aesthetically.
ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "On the other hand, it's an antiquated rule when a score like this utilizes electronic music as part of its artistry." "We don't have minimum numbers for actors or authors, so why should they exist for musicians?"
I'm listening to the Off-Broadway cast album. I hear almost all acoustic instruments, a drum machine/synth that has been used live since the seventies, and un-timed disco sound effect type swooshes. Am I missing something? Minimums and storytelling autonomy aside, it just sounds like the whole score CAN be played live by musicians.
Also, didn't Equity get understudy minimums and swing restrictions added to their latest contract? Author minimums is apples to oranges: using less authors wouldn't change the royalty formula that most authors are subject to. So nobody is out anything. The musicians are definitely out on this one... and there doesn't really seem to be a good reason why because you know Alex Timbers isn't taking some small altruistic fee / royalty for the cause. It's a twenty million dollar musical for Pete's sake.
BwayMusician
Swing Joined: 4/11/20
#7Here Lies Love and Live Musicians
Posted: 5/25/23 at 3:49pm
The special situations clause is usually open to *very* generous interpretations - it would be incredibly likely that Local 802 would have gone along with a much smaller band than the minimum at the Broadway (OUAOMT just opened well under the minimum at the Marquis) but the fact that they are hiring zero musicians is a bit outrageous. And nobody wants walkers - musicians want to play music, not sit around and do nothing.
Also, while HLL does use a lot of electronic music, I'm listening to the original cast recording with Ruthie Ann Miles, and there are oboes, clarinets, strings...not to mention what's clearly guitar, bass, and drums, along with the v-music in the show. Am I missing something?
ErmengardeStopSniveling
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/20/18
#8Here Lies Love and Live Musicians
Posted: 5/25/23 at 4:02pm
Blindbutlerdeafmaid said: "Also, didn't Equity get understudy minimums and swing restrictions added to their latest contract?"
Yes but none of it is related to the number of seats in the theatre. That is what makes the 802 rule so silly. If one wants to argue that it's correct to have orchestra minimums based on # of seats, then that should be applied across various other unions too.
If anything, base the minimum # of musicians on the capitalization of the show (which the producers would HATE), not the seats in the house.
Blindbutlerdeafmaid
Swing Joined: 8/15/13
#9Here Lies Love and Live Musicians
Posted: 5/25/23 at 4:17pm
ErmengardeStopSniveling: I wasn't arguing for minimums. I'm just saying that this very specific one leaves me scratching my head and I feel like I'm missing something. But, now, looking at the list of minimums, they don't seem unreasonable to me. Especially, as you even mentioned, if the AFM does seem easily and reasonably bendable on them.
I happen to wish all musicals had a Hollywood-size string and brass/horn section added to the classic Broadway reed and rhythm writing.
Allowing shows tracked as heavily as HLL for no aesthetic reason (listening to the album) makes it seem like we'll get them: three keys, a drummer, two reed doublers, and a non-union string and horn/brass section recorded in Prague running off of "tape".
Which seems horrible to me.
BETTY22
Broadway Star Joined: 12/29/13
#10Here Lies Love and Live Musicians
Posted: 5/25/23 at 6:36pm
This is outrageous and must not be allowed to happen. It will change Broadway forever - and not for the better.
Shame David Byrne. I hope voters remember this at TONY time.
pethian
Stand-by Joined: 5/23/22
#11Here Lies Love and Live Musicians
Posted: 5/25/23 at 6:51pm
This seems awfully late in the process to be having this confrontation. How long have they been wrangling about this?
Seems to me this should have been part of the conceptualizing process. "If we're doing a Broadway show, we'll have to deal with live musicians. If we don't want live musicians, maybe we should be talking about other venues for the piece."
If no other reason than precedent, I hope 802 holds fast.
#12Here Lies Love and Live Musicians
Posted: 5/25/23 at 7:10pm
Considering that this show has a producer and GM who are definitely not novices and certainly should have known better, it is unbelievable that they thought they could ignore this and it would not be a huge problem. Had they approached AFM from the beginning, a reasonable concession would have almost definitely been negotiated. Now a deal is not so clear. AFM will surely exact a price for this. The production is caught in an untenable position. With no deal, the show would be prohibitively expensive but as things apparently now stand there will be no show at all. (And I think that is mutually a bad resolution.)
That said, I do not see this as something that changes anything in a broader sense (unless AFM caves which they will not). The show would be weird with a live orchestra (except at the end). I don't think karaoke is going to take over Broadway because of this show.
Blindbutlerdeafmaid
Swing Joined: 8/15/13
#13Here Lies Love and Live Musicians
Posted: 5/25/23 at 9:29pm
HogansHero said: "The show would be weird with a live orchestra (except at the end)."
What am I missing? Listening to the original cast album:
• American Troglodyte is a drum machine, a live tracked electric bass, two un-timed sound effects, a live tracked electric guitar, a live tracked keyboard, more drum machine that would be very easy to do live. It adds a synth with an arpeggiator (many shows recreate this on keys and guitars).
• Here Lies Love is live tracked strings, some live tracked reeds, easily executable percussion, a synth sound that can absolutely be played live, a drum kit, and some sfx. There's nothing in here that can't be easily -- or wasn't -- executed live for the recording of the tracks.
• and on and on and on. The tracks don't make any crazy argument for a "karaoke sound", they don't sound like karaoke. Karaoke is cheap synth flutes and horrible drums sounds. These tracks are LIVE MUSICIANS tracking a score that is far less technically complicated than anyone wants it to be.
It MIGHT be an 13 person pit at MOST: Three strings, two keys, a drummer, two percussionists, two reed doublers, two guitarists, and a bass player. And it would still sound EXACTLY like the recording. You'd be splurging on strings to add two or three more and STILL get to ask for a minimum reduction.
I'm not trying to argue. I'm truly just trying to understand what I'm missing. Because the aesthetic argument makes no sense to me listening to the original album. Think it would be weird to have the live musicians that tracked the album playing it live? Hide them in another part of the theater. Shows have been doing that for more than 25 years.
Skipping through the rest of the album: I don't hear ANY custom synth sounds that you couldn't just pluck off a keyboard walking across a Guitar Center in Oklahoma... or percussion more complicated than ANYTHING in The Lion King or In The Heights. In fact, most of the show could be executed even without a click track.... and I'm under no illusions that click tracks are as rare as people want us to believe.
So is everyone just swindled by the idea that the authors wanted a Karaoke sound that they knew people wouldn't pay $200 a seat for so they recorded real musicians and called it a "Karaoke" aesthetic or am I missing something?
This HAS to be making Andrew Lloyd Webber salivate over a tracked Phantom revival recorded by a (non-union) HUNDRED-piece Hollywood/Symphonic-size orchestra. "My intent was a Symphonic-Size orchestra with a rock component, not a 27-piece piece pit band."
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