Preproduction: The (Dying?) Art of Music Preparation
(A series of articles about how new musicals come to pass.)
Preproduction: the period of time during which work is done on a show prior to the first rehearsal.
We're a little out of sequence on this one, but it looms very large in my mind because I'm currently out of town, working on a new show based on a movie with music based on older music all based on . . . well, never mind that, I'm here in San Francisco as part of a team of music copyists. The show is a large one, with some pretty heavyduty names involved — but of course, due to financial constraints we are also understaffed. Luckily for us the orchestra is not a large one (13 pieces) since, at this point, the orchestra and conductor are our primary concern. But let's go back a step — wait, let's go way back.
Ever since some wacky monk figured out a way to write down tunes, music has been prepared by hand. When Gutenburg came up with the printing press, some smart publishing guy or other had a great idea for how to get some more income for himself by using the newfangled contraption for music, but until very recently that's been a very complicated, time consuming and expensive practice. Way too time consuming (and expensive) for the fast paced, volatile world of the musical theatre. You'll never see actual "engraved" music while a show is still changing (that's as opposed to computer copied music which we'll get into next week). As a matter of fact, even a large percentage of the shows available for rental still use copies of the original handwritten parts (or cleaned up copies, recopied to take into account changes that occurred during the run or on the road — but still handwritten). In other words, if your college class is doing a production of South Pacific with orchestra parts rented from the Rodgers and Hammerstein library, you'll find that other than the rehearsal piano/conductor book, the orchestra parts are handwritten.
Before a show is even completed, a copyist may be called in. For example, the woman I work for has been helping out one of our most renowned theatre composers while he's still just in the writing phase. He feels that he can't clearly see what he's written if it's in his own handwriting, so my boss recopies his work. Then he'll do whatever it is he does with it and make changes, which she'll execute. And back and forth until he feels that the
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