For community theaters, schools, churches and nonprofit organizations
Musicians are the reason many groups never attempt a show with music.
A band or orchestra is no longer a requirement for musicals or plays with music. Most community productions now run to professionally produced backing tracks, and audiences have stopped noticing.
What backing tracks actually are
Studio recordings of the accompaniment, without vocals. Your performers sing live over them. Good ones are recorded by session players and sound better than most volunteer pit bands.
They are licensed per performance, usually somewhere between $25 and $75 a night, from the company that produced them. That is separate from your script royalties and separate from your ASCAP or BMI coverage.
What you gain
The obvious saving is money and recruitment. Six to twelve musicians is a second cast to find, schedule and keep.
The unobvious saving is rehearsal. A pit band needs its own rehearsals, then sitzprobe, then technical rehearsals with everyone. Tracks remove that entire calendar. Your performers can also rehearse at home with the same tracks they will sing to on the night. For a volunteer company that is often the difference between a show that happens and one that does not.
The third gain is consistency. Your Sunday matinee sounds exactly like your Friday opening.
The part that matters more than the tracks
Your sound system.
Tracks are only as good as what plays them. A laptop into a portable speaker will sound like a laptop into a portable speaker, and that is the version of your show the audience gets.
What you need is honest rather than expensive. A system that fills the room without distorting, a person who knows how to set levels, and enough microphones that your leads can be heard over the music.
In a real theater or a church sanctuary, this comes with the room, and the venue’s own people run it. A room whose sound cannot carry the show is the wrong room, and this is the one thing not to compromise on.
Microphones, honestly
Body-worn microphones are the ideal and they are not cheap to rent. Three of them, on the people who carry the most, will cover most shows.
If you cannot manage that, well-placed area microphones and a cast trained to project will work in a room of the right size. What will not work is hoping. Test it in the actual room, with the actual tracks, at the actual volume, with someone sitting in the back row.
Two rehearsals that save the show
One with tracks, early. As soon as the cast knows the songs, rehearse with the tracks rather than a piano. The adjustment is small and it is much smaller in October than in the week before opening.
One with the full system, in the room. Not the dress rehearsal. Before it. Levels set for an empty room are wrong for a full one, so set them low and expect to push them up on opening night.
Ask before you commit
- Are tracks provided, or must we source them?
- What do they cost per performance, and from whom?
- Is there a click track or count-in, and does the cast hear it?
- Can songs be cut or swapped for our performers?
- Is there room built in for applause?
A show designed around tracks will have clean answers to all five. A show adapted to them will not, and you will find the gaps during technical week.
About this guide
Written by Curtain & Cause. We write original plays for community theaters and work with the nonprofit organizations staging them as fundraisers. Christmas on the Dial is an original full-length play staged as a live 1950s radio broadcast, with the audience as the studio audience.
Questions about any of the above are welcome, whether or not you are looking at this show. booking@curtainandcause.com
License the show · Book it as a fundraiser · Questions and answers
