Although it’s not widely discussed, playing theatre music has always been considered the ugly stepchild of the music business. Playing in a theatre doesn’t pay nearly as much or command respect as recording music for movies, television or CDs, but the work being done in LA’s orchestra pits today is as unmatched in quality as its recording brethren’s worldwide reputation.
When I read Sting’s memoir, Broken Music, I was surprised to find that his first professional job was playing in the pit for a run of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The respect Sting has for the theatre and the working musician in the pit is evident in this passage:
I am so proud that after all this drifting and treading water I have a professional, well-paid job making music. This was my ambition, and here I am turning up every night under the enormous steel structure of the stage set, finding my own music stand, its tiny light glowing among the wires and equipment and the parts for the show, waiting in the darkness as the audience files in for the evening performance.
…I just love being here at the center of it all, playing the bass in my dark cave. I grandiosely imagine that the whole artifice is being constructed on the subterranean foundation of this sound, the steady, grounded, invisible pulse from the instrument in my hand. For when the lights go down and the conductor raises his baton in the silence before the first bar, nothing else exists and I am ridiculously happy.
For the next few weeks until January 7 I’ll be playing guitar and kalimba for a reprise of The Lion King at the Pantages Theatre. I was part of the original LA production that began in 2000 and continued for a long and rare (for LA) 2 ½-year run. The 17-piece orchestra in the pit sounds incredibly vibrant, real and is kicking butt every single night in a way that no virtual orchestra machine, tape or orchestral sequencer could ever hope to match.
If you happen to have tickets, please come down to the pit rail and say hello…and get a peek of the excitement Sting talks about.