Where Did the Big Broadway Bands Go?

“But what is a revival?” “A revival is when a Broadway producer takes a musical that everyone knows and loves, and brings it back to Broadway- with a smaller orchestra!” - Bud and Doug

Nearly two years ago, The Phantom of the Opera, and their 27 piece orchestra, played their final performance on Broadway. Phantom is now about to embark on a North American tour using the restaged West End production that opened after the pandemic, including their reduced orchestration which is down to 14 members; with horns, trumpets, strings, and percussion parts cut. It’s a tale as old as time–a similar picture can be painted with Les Miserables, which has cut several orchestra members every time it has come back to Broadway, with their most recent tour reducing their orchestra size down to 14.

Luckily, there is a limit to how many musicians that can be cut for a Broadway show on the main stem, in the form of musician minimums. These minimums range as high as 19 for the Broadway, Lyric, Minskoff, Marquis, New Amsterdam, and St James Theatres, to as low as three for Circle in the Square, Booth, Belsaco, Ambassador, Golden, Lyceum, Jones, and Kerr Theatres. These minimums are agreed to by a collective bargaining agreement between The Broadway League and American Federation of Musicians Local 802, and are functionally unchanged since the Musician Strike of 2003. That strike occurred because of fears and threats around replacing live musicians with virtual orchestras, a new technology at the time, as well as proposals to lower the minimum to 7 in the largest houses, and zero in every other house. Negotiations that followed wound up lowering the minimums of the largest houses from 24-26 to 18-19, but also ensured stronger protections from things like virtual orchestras.

Since Hamilton, 78 new musicals have begun performances on Broadway (including Redwood). Of those, the median orchestra size is 10, with a high of 22 and a low of 4. Of the 15 musicals that have already recouped in that timeframe, the average pit size is also right around 10. Other statistics over that timeframe paint a similarly bleak picture of the state of large orchestras (or lack thereof) on Broadway. The only new musical to make its money back and have an orchestra larger than 12 when not required by the theater was Mean Girls. Shows that had a minimum of 18+ waived have a higher recoupment rate than average over that time. 

The most recent new musical with more than 20 players in its orchestra to recoup its investment is Wicked, which a few months ago celebrated 21 years of performances on Broadway. Only one new musical in the 2010s took the financial risk to open with an orchestra larger than 20– Disney’s Frozen–which cost well over $30 million to bring to Broadway and closed during the pandemic without turning a profit. Only one musical since the pandemic has attempted to have an orchestra that size, and that was the ill-fated New York, New York! and their 20 piece orchestra, which closed after 3 months at close to a $30 million loss. 

Some of the reasoning behind this is fairly obvious. Running costs are out of control right now; even more moderately sized shows like last year’s Suffs needed to gross nearly $800k a week to turn a profit. One synthesizer can replace several orchestra members, and it is the responsibility of a producer to cut costs to something more reasonable to ensure the continued commercial viability of a show. Ain’t Too Proud is the only new musical with an orchestra of 18 or larger that has recouped since Hamilton. Overall new musicals with an orchestra of 18 or larger are 1 for 13 on recouping during that time frame. Circumstances may not be quite as dire of a situation as that 1 for 13 rate may indicate, as it includes The Great Gatsby and Death Becomes Her, which are still running and doing well. It also includes Beetlejuice, which may have recouped if not for the pandemic. 

There are of course musicals that do not require a large orchestra. Hadestown has a seven piece on-stage band, which notably does not include a synthesizer. There are also ways to argue for hiring fewer musicians than the house minimum, a notable example being Hamilton with their 10 piece band in the 14 piece minimum Richard Rogers, as the hip-hop beats in the score mean they do not need to hire as many musicians. Indeed, as popular music has shifted (over the last 50 years) towards a heavier emphasis on guitars, synths, and drums, and less on full orchestras, so has the music of Broadway. 

There is still a major push towards having large orchestras on Broadway. Every season in the last several years, save for 2019, has had a major revival of a classic show with a 25+ member orchestra, which is often used as a selling point for the show. In fact, at the time of Phantom’s closing, it was not the largest orchestra on Broadway; that title belonged to the Lincoln Center’s revival of Camelot, which opened three days prior with a 30 piece orchestra. These big band revivals are often profitable as well, Sweeney Todd and Music Man were both economically successful ventures, and the current revival of Gypsy is also doing very well, though revivals are not usually financially viable in the long term, as opposed to the hope of new musicals. 

If there’s one thing the musicians union has made clear recently, it’s that live orchestras on Broadway aren’t going anywhere. The Broadway League has affirmed this too, with the most recent collective bargaining agreement between the two organizations resulting in the largest pay increase in the history of the musicians union, with very few concessions. Minimums as well remain unchanged in the years since the strike. Maybe Phantom’s closure was the official end of large, 25+, orchestras on Broadway as long running mainstays (the next highest are Lion King and Wicked with 24). 11 of the 18 musicals that have had a musicians minimum waived in the last 10 years were for houses with a minimum of 18 or more. That is nearly as many as new musicals with 18+ member orchestras on Broadway in that time. 

Still, there are some hopeful signs. Of the 78 new musicals analyzed here, 34 had orchestras larger than their house minimum, eight of which opened in the last year. Even shows with larger bands are profitable enough to run for an extended period of time, Back to the Future (18), though they did not recoup their investment, played over 500 performances before they closed. So too The Great Gatsby (19) and Death Becomes Her (18) both appear poised to run for a significant length of time, and may recoup in due time. As many new musicals have opened with 18+ member orchestras in the three and a half years since the Broadway’s return as the five years prior to the shutdown, with more poised to open this spring. It’s getting to be an oft-repeated script, that every show is vying to be that one big hit, and one big hit is all it takes. If large orchestras are any indication, maybe that hit has already come. Or even better, maybe it isn’t needed.