What to do when you don't have a full pit?
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As a music director, I'm constantly running into the issue of what to do with the Reed Books. We're about to do Little Mermaid, and the issue is that my pool of pit performers would not include the right mix to have someone who plays everything for each Reed book.
I also don't have enough performers (at least at this time) to cover all required keyboard books (1-3).
Is not having the correct instrumentation for the whole show going to be an issue? Can a reed part be transposed so that all of Reed 1, for example, is playable by flute (whether written out transposed or the player doing it as they play the book)? Or can they skip the non-flute sections and only play the instrument they know? Does not doing everything exactly as orchestrated considered a breach of contract since the performance would no longer be "as is"?
What are the correct steps to take when this happens?
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Staff Answer
When you license a show, you are not required to use all of the orchestration parts. It would be up to your music director to look through the avaialble parts to determin what to use to get the best overall sound from the musicians that you have available to play in the pit. We are not able to grant permission for you to create any new orchestrations or to reorchestrate the show to be played by different instruments that what are provided in teh authorized production materials.
Fortunately, for DISNEY'S THE LITTLE MERMAID, there is an OrchExtra system available. The OrchExtra can be used to suppliment for the players that you do not have avaialble.