@@stephenhall7595 I've also worked on the show and I can also confirm it is CO2 and is dangerous. We had to install co2 meters in our pit and we had to have an evacuation procedure in place for if levels went over a certain threshold
Odd question. But did your light change brightness or was it a edit in the video? Like I’ve seen some theatres that have two brightness settings in their lights. They sometimes go out for a blackout
I am curious why are there live musicians when the whole show seems to be running on click and the whole orchestra is hidden? Why not just use prerecorded tracks?
I’m assuming to keep the live aspect of the show. Like personally, I love hearing the live orchestra/band of the show because it just adds to the whole effect. Plus, you don’t want every performance to be the same. That’s highkey boring. And I also can guess it’s like for technical purposes too. Like in case they stop for whatever reason, they can pick up exactly where they need to.
For that matter why not just make a movie and record all the actors on stage once, cut it together, and show it. :P It’s live theater... you want your band to be live for the same reason everything else is live. It’s live. That’s the point of the whole enterprise. ;) Anyway, there’re sections in the score called vamps, where you need live musicians to play. They play the same bar or two of music over and over again as background fill until the stage/cast are ready to move on, at which point the conductor cues the band to the next section. Most nights, the vamps will all be the same length as they always are (big shows like this are well-oiled machines)... but some nights something happens and you need a second or two more music. Can’t have everything go dead, or worse, move on, until everyone’s ready for the next number.
Mamma Mia is mostly on click, but the ABBA estate forbids any production that has less than 5 musicians live. The regular orchestration is 9 musicians. Live Music is fundamental for Mamma Mia because of the richness that it adds; and the live feeling you can’t get from backing tracks. And besides, the musicians can riff a lot in that show.
This show has a very electronics heavy orchestration. 4 keyboards, 2 guitars, drums, bass, and percussion. The click is super important because there's a lot of vocal samples being triggered that need to be the right tempo.
Having done this show without a click I can tell you that it is not fun. A lot of starting samples only to abandon them midway when the tempo is hopelessly off.
