<p>I don’t know if it was noticed, but all the cast, tech crew, even the cast where they were basically extras, standing in the background for 5 minutes, and the people selling candy and drinks at the concession stand were all given free tickets to the show. But the entire orchestra had to pay for tickets. That is not even asking for recognition publically. Why would they give free tickets to the extras and the concession stand people, but not the instrumentalists? The bios were also given to every single person, even the people who literally came on stage, stood in the background for a scene, and then left the stage. I am not pointing to any one thing as being solely the problem, but everything put together made the entire experience, for a lack of better word “sucky.”</p>
<p>Next year, my daughter will refuse to be in the pit. They probably won’t care. They have enough other kids to do it. My daughter was actually the only person who came to every single rehearsal, for the entire time of the rehearsal. Literally, no one else put in 100% of the hours (except the conductor and such I assume, but no other instrumentalist). If she had not been at the all the practices, several of them would have had no violists. AND, while this is not the fault of the theater people, there was a situation where seniors were given first dibs at all solos. So, my daughter, who is a junior, had no solos. Then, the seniors did not show up for most of the rehearsals. My daughter filled in and played the solos at almost all the rehearsals, including the dress rehearsals. She also played the part where they played little bits during the school day for the students (they did just a few scenes for the students to sample throughout the day, so she missed classes all day that day, even though she has 3 AP classes she needed to keep up in). But, then when the actual show came, the seniors showed and they still got to play the solos. Not like anyone watching would have a clue who played anything or solos or otherwise, but, that too bothered me. I can understand letting seniors have first dibs, but wouldn’t that be forfetted when the seniors did not even show?</p>
<p>Seriously, if this is the music industry, and how things go, I personally never could have handled it.</p>