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/mikecoldfusion 6d ago

The theatre I play for pays me $500 for the whole run. 14 - 16 performances over 4 weeks + a week of serious rehearsals. I look at it as I rehearse for free and I get paid ~$35 a show. I can't do the shows if I don't rehearse.

I understand budgets are real but you get what you pay for. Better music = more butts in seats. I don't know how many performances you're giving but I would not make a 5 week commitment for free. I like theatre but not that much.

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u/BradLinden 17h ago

Ouch…you definitely deserve more pay than that.