[TPIN] Adults playing in student productions

[vglockwood at comcast.net]

Steve Evans,
    I am with you 100%.  I have also been on stage and that is what the audience is coming to see.  I have definitely been on stage with a less-than-up-to-par pit orch and it just ruins the production.  The actors, et al, have enough other things to worry about without having to consider the music isn't there.
    I just finished playing pit in Annie - my first pit job in a few years - and the music director told us to have the student play the solos which was fine.  I thought that was a great idea and appropriate.  There were 3 students and me - 2 on 2nd and 1 on 1st with me.  A couple of times, the student 1st player was hot dogging around and wasn't paying attention so I played the solo just because he was going to miss it.  That is something that the actors cue on and would have been counting on.  
    Just the presence of adults in the pit helps keeps the kids a little more focused on the task at hand in addition to showing them the proper respect for the background, but critical, job they play.
    I just want to do it every year .....  - Gin  (South Pacific next year!)


-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Steve Evans <baissie at yahoo.com> 

> ----- Original Message ---- 
> From: Steve Roiland sjrtrumpet1 at hotmail.com 
> 
> 
> This is called mentoring an is the best way to teach, 
> 
> >From: mike magers 
> > 
> >If students are excluded, I think it defeats the purpose, 
> > 
> >----- Original Message ---- 
> >From: "Vaxtrpts at aol.com" 
> > 
> >When a production is put on by a school, it should be something 
> >that involves STUDENTS. Hiring an all adult pit band completely goes 
> >against the EDUCATIONAL aspects of even putting on a musical. 
> 
> ------------------------------ 
> I guess I started this so let me say one more thing. 
> 
> As my good friend Scott pointed out to me last night, ALL of what you guys are 
> saying is true, IF you're basic premise is that HS musicals are an educational 
> experience for ALL students. That was not my perspective as I clearly stated in 
> the very beginning of this debate. 
> 
> I still maintain that musicals are a theatrical production and therefore an 
> educational experience for the actors, singers, dancers, and theater technical 
> people (lights, sound, set design, stage crew). Instrumentalist have plenty of 
> their own venues for educational experience that will not adversly affect the 
> experience of those on stage if they are not up to par, not playing their role 
> as accompanist, or worse, screwing up. 
> 
> A 5th or 6th chair HS trumpet player will not have the best interests of the 
> actors and singers and dancers in mind while they play. I'd be willing to bet 
> they won't even think of them unless the actor misses a line or the singer 
> forgets a lyric. Then they'll just laugh. If the tempo is slow because the 
> dancers can't quite keep up, do you think these kids will understand and hold 
> back? No. It doesn't matter that the conductor is trying to hold back, the kids 
> will push the tempo to where they want it or think it should. And yes, that's 
> something they need to learn as an accompanist, but let them learn it when 
> they're not spoiling the dancer's or singer's experience. In many cases it's 
> their ONLY educational experience.We tumpet players in a pit are accompanists, 
> even when we have solos. If our solo does not excite those on stage, we have let 
> them down. We are NOT playing to the audience. How many HS kids get that? How 
> many of you on TPIN get that? We *are* trumpet players 
> after all. :) 
> 
> One final thought. 
> 
> I once asked a 2nd trumpet player student why he wasn't on stage. He was one of 
> the better ones, best in the school. His answer, besides not wanting to 
> dance...'they work too hard. They rehearse 2 HOURS EVERY DAY after school. If I 
> play in the pit we only rehearse an hour 2 or 3 days a week. And we don't start 
> until about a month before the show. They're doing it for 2 and half months!' So 
> my challenge to all you parents and teachers out there who say your trumpet 
> players need this educational experience in a pit is, make them work for it. 
> Make them rehearse just as much as the actors, singers, and dancers if that 
> means 2 hours, 5 days a week, for 8 to 10 weeks. And make them understand what 
> their role in the pit actually is. Then, and only then, have you given them an 
> educational experience that's worth something. 
> 
> I've done many HS shows in at least 7 different schools over the last 5 to 7 
> years. I guess that makes me either a hero for so much mentoring or a goat for 
> stealing the chair from a kid. I don't see myself as either. I'm there to help 
> the folks on stage. That's what a pit does. I've been on that stage. I know what 
> I'm talking about. 
> 
> ...Steve 
> 
> P.S. I'll bet this debate would have a very different twist if it were held on a 
> theater forum. 
> 
> 
> 
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