No Live Music in Musicals?
by Ashley Griffin. Stage Directions
A little over a year ago, I wrote an article for American Theater Magazine called “First the Album, Then The Show” about the new(ish) widespread trend of releasing cast albums ahead of Broadway openings. Around the same time, I wrote an article for OnStage called “Should Electronic Music be Welcome on Broadway?” focusing on the musical controversies surrounding the first K-pop musical in Broadway history and the use of electronic music on Broadway.
Jesse Green said in his New York Times review of “K-pop: The Musical”: “There are only three instrumentalists” and criticized the “mostly electronic arrangements.”
The new Broadway offering “Here Lies Love” is now saying to Green:
“Hold my drink.”
The new David Byrne-Fatboy Slim musical which received significant acclaim during its off-Broadway and London stagings, re-tells the story of former Filipina First Lady Imelda Marcos by setting the story within an immersive dance club environment. The show relies entirely on the use of pre-recorded tracks. It is pitting NYC’s musicians’ union against the shows’ producers, with the union calling the concept an “existential threat to Broadway” and the producers countering that the tracks are “part of the karaoke genre inherent to the musical.”
The producers say, “Since ‘Here Lies Love’ was first conceived seventeen years ago, every production has been performed to pre-recorded track(s); this is part of the karaoke genre inherent to the musical and the production concept. The music for ‘Here Lies Love’ was inspired by the phenomena of ‘track acts’ which allowed club audiences to keep dancing, much like this production aims to do.”
Tino Gagliardi, the President and Executive Director of the musician’s union Local 802, replied that this show poses a “cultural threat to musical theater worldwide” adding that “For generations, audiences have experienced Broadway shows with live music performed by the best musicians in the world, and by using just pre-recorded tracks it not only cheapens the art it’s putting jobs and livelihoods at risk.”
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article for OnStage called “A.I. and the Future of Theater”.
It seems all these issues have combined and reached a very real impasse. All the pontificating and theorizing in the past have been well and good, but we are now faced with a critical and immediate situation that forces our views into action.
“Here Lies Love” would not be the first Broadway show to use all prerecorded music. “Contact” famously faced significant criticism when it opened at Lincoln Center, and then was nominated for a Tony for Best Musical, with no live music in sight(But that was a dance show (and part of the controversy about it being nominated for Best Musical in the first place). The recent circus production of “The Little Prince” also didn’t use live musicians, but that was a circus show.
“Here Lies Love” stands to be the first true Broadway musical not to use any live musicians at all.
My first thought was that this might be controversial, but legally (and in terms of the employment of musicians), technically shouldn’t be a problem. There has long been a rule establishing the minimum number of musicians a musical must employ (currently nineteen). If a show doesn’t need that many, that’s fine – but they still have to pay the remaining number of musicians not to be there. Basically, if you’re only using ten musicians, then you have to pay another nine musicians not to play at your show. Theoretically, “Here Lies Love” should just be paying nineteen musicians not to show up at their theater.
But “Here Lies Love” has applied for a “Special Situation.” Such a thing is rare but not unknown. It allows a show to apply for an exemption to the nineteen-musician rule because of special circumstances (I believe, though I have not confirmed, that “Contact” and “The Little Prince” may have fallen into this category since they weren’t musicals…) The “Special Situations” governing panel is made up of representatives from Local 802, the League and “neutrals” and is unique to each “Special Situations” request. So, basically, the producers of “Here Lies Love” and Local 802 are going to have to duke it out (Law and Order: Broadway style. Anyone? No?) If either side does not accept the decision, it will go to arbitration.
Production of ‘Here Lies Love’ at the Seattle Repertory Theatre in 2017. (Photo: Navid Baraty)
Thus far, it seems the producers’ defense of their request for a “Special Situation” has focused on the musical needs of their show, saying, “The production is of a definable musical genre different from a traditional Broadway musical.” But it’s not much of a leap to infer that finances are at play – if not, why not just pay the nineteen musicians? I actually wrote about this issue recently, too in “The Catch-22 of Theater Economics in the U.S.”
This issue has primarily been framed in the press as musicians vs. producers, boiling down the debate to: “Is Karaoke music valid on Broadway, or must all Broadway musicals have live music to retain their integrity?” But that’s a deceptive minimizing of the complexities of the issues at play.
Let’s break down everything that’s really going on in this case that makes it so important (and concerning) when it comes to the future of the Broadway musical.
Music, in general, is changing
One of the things that’s so wonderful about musical theater is the way it responds to (and often creates) the music of the times. But, especially in the past ten years, the definition of music itself has been evolving. Most songs playing on the radio use almost no live instruments if any at all. Concerts and live performances are now primarily artists singing to pre-recorded tracks if they’re even singing live in the first place. This isn’t (always) just down to not wanting to pay musicians - electronic music is a unique sound and has become an “instrument” in its own right, often creating a sound no live musician can make. So, what happens when this new (or not-so-new) musical sound makes its way to Broadway?
The culture at large, specifically Broadway, needs to decide our definition of music. Must music, by its very nature, include live musicians? Or are live musicians a musical “choice” as much as it is any choice of what instruments to include in a band or orchestra? And would we feel differently about that choice if the livelihood of real people weren’t on the line? A symphony orchestra would undoubtedly say that live musicians are an integral part of music. A pop producer would likely disagree.
The current economic issues surrounding live performance are in crisis
I wrote a whole article on this, but something has to be done to lower producers' costs and protect wages and jobs for artists (those onstage, backstage, in front of house, and in the pit.) What we’re looking at now is unsustainable, and it’s a country-wide (and worldwide) problem.
The rise and lack of regulation of A.I.
Yeah – A.I. is coming for our jobs. All of them. And one could put the use of electronic music in the A.I. category. This is technology doing what was once the singular job of human beings, and it’s a slippery slope. “Here Lies Love” argues that pre-recorded music is essential to the inherent story they’re telling. What happens when the first musical that takes place inside a video game goes to Broadway, and producers start making the argument that they don’t have to use live actors because having A.I. cast members “is essential to the inherent story they’re telling”?
A great thought experiment called the “Ship of Theseus” asks, “does an object which has had all of its original components replaced remain the same?” The idea comes from an ancient Greek myth where Theseus, after slaying the minotaur, escapes onto a ship traveling to Delos. Each year, the Athenians commemorated this by taking the ship on a pilgrimage to Delos to honor Apollo. Ancient philosophers raised a question: After several centuries of repairs and maintenance, if each part of the Ship of Theseus was replaced, one at a time, was it still the same ship?
It's a question we need to ask about the American musical. At what point is a musical no longer a musical? When there are no live musicians? When there are no live actors? When it’s in a club environment? When it doesn’t tell a story? When it’s completely written and created by A.I.? And if it is no longer a musical…what is it? Where is the line?
What concerns me about the “Here Lies Love” situation is that the producers seem so focused on changing the paradigm of a musical. There are many other, far less controversial options that would allow them to present their show how they feel it needs to be presented. The easiest (and fairest) would be to pay the nineteen musicians whether they need them or not.
“Here Lies Love” seems to be a successful show with a strong track record. I don’t know what the budget is for “Here Lies Love” but from the outside, it doesn’t appear to be the kind of show that wouldn’t be able to come to Broadway if it were forced to “bear the financial burden” of paying for the nineteen musicians it chooses not to use(It seems a bit to me, though this is an exaggerated example, of going to a fast food restaurant, ordering the combo, and then insisting you don’t want to pay for the fries because you’re not going to eat them if you get the combo, you get everything that comes with it, whether you choose to eat it or not)
They could also advertise themselves as a “special event,” which is a unique category for Broadway presentations and has covered everything from dance shows to concerts to circus performances. The rules are a bit different for this category and would allow them more flexibility. Or they could not open on Broadway, but at a concert venue or “found space” (it is interesting that “K-pop: The Musical” did much better when it was presented downtown as an immersive theater piece… and no one was questioning their lack of an orchestra in that environment)
But the producers of “Here Lies Love” seem intent on:
1.) Opening in a Broadway theater
2.) Opening under the terms and conditions of a musical
3.) Not using (or paying) any live musicians
If the special council votes in favor of the producers, it could radically change what a musical IS. And changing that definition would significantly impact how we define art and artists in this country. This issue is being raised in the middle of a significant WGA strike, and a SAG-AFTRA strike is coming (as are, likely, strikes from other arts unions.)
We are in a perfect storm where the very humanity at the heart of “art” is in danger of being completely eliminated. There are ways to create and put up art that bends the rules, but we’re in real danger if we allow that kind of art to usurp the standards that define a genre.