A feature in the New York Times describes how pit orchestras in Broadway musicals are often filled with substitute musicians, who fill in for performances where the regular players take a day off for one reason or another.
The subs can be called in at the last minute and often don’t rehearse with the regular orchestra. In many cases, though, they’ve had the chance to sit in on rehearsals and make recordings, which they use to play along at home.
Because the show must go on, musicians selected for the regular orchestra usually provide the names of five other musicians who could be called in the event they can’t perform in one of about eight shows a week.
“Once,” Jeff Schiller, a “Kinky Boots” sub, told the Times, “I got a call half an hour into a show, when a regular was experiencing incredible kidney stone pain.” Luckily, Mr Schiller, who goes by the nickname Houndog, lives near the theater district. He swapped in between numbers in the middle of Act One.
If you can handle the scary situations musicians are sometimes in, including playing multiple instruments, the pay is pretty good: Subs make the same union scale as regular orchestra members—$227.42 per performance—but the work is not nearly as steady, they say.
