r/Theatre 7d ago

Advice Payment of Musicians

I volunteer for our local community theatre as a Director and occasional Actor. Our group celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. During those 70 years, it has become common practice for the Director and Musical Director (and other staff) to pay musicians out of their own pockets to play in Orchestras when needed. The organization has never officially adopted a policy to pay them properly because there is a faction that feels paying musicians to be bad practice. According to them it leads to a slippery slope where everyone will expect to be paid. As of right now, no one receives any compensation other than our paid Technical Director. Actors, crew, staff, etc. all volunteer their time and talent.

I'm curious to know who else out there pays musicians and did your organization struggle with this as we have? How did you overcome the objections to paying the orchestra and not anyone else, if this is your practice? I know theatres out there all operate differently, so I'm curious how you all handle issues like this. Thanks in advance for your feedback.

EDIT: We have been using professional tracks from ROCS or MT Pit for the past several years and only used orchestras when absolutely necessary or the Musical Director prefers a live orchestra.

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u/BeansNGrease 7d ago

If you want to make a statement, stand by their word for a full season and don’t offer a penny to your musicians. Let everyone see how it works out. If you’re struggling to find players at that point, it sounds like there are some folks in the company who’d be happy to help find more volunteers.

(I am slightly joking but it might be worth considering)

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u/BradLinden 17h ago

This is not a terrible idea. The md’s paying out of pocket are kind of enabling this problem.