Macbeth

What are rehearsals like for musicians?

The musicians meet for initial band calls about 5 weeks before the opening of the show. They don’t begin rehearsing with the full company until the tech week, which is the week before the show opens. There really is no such thing as a typical rehearsal for the musicians as the scoring, instrumentation and direction of the composer vary greatly. Usually they will practice the cues scene by scene and then, depending on the composer, the score may be altered to suit the strengths of different instruments and players.

Sometimes the band have separate rehearsals (for say percussion or brass), to give different sections a chance to focus on their parts. When the musicians join the tech rehearsals they begin to incorporate movement, positioning, cues and costumes into their performance.