Production accompaniment tracks - Cinderella

[Ourtime992]

Posted: 4/5/11 at 6:24pm

I am directing a show at a little community theater that usually uses tracks and other technologies (like MTI's OrchExtra or www.themtpit.com) in the place of live accompaniment. We are doing Cinderella (the R&H Enchanted version) and seem to be unable to find something for this production (as opposed to the many tracks that seem to be available out there for the original, 3-act version). Anyone have any leads?

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 4/5/11 at 9:51pm

http://www.rms.biz/products/sinfonia/catalog/rodgers-hammerstein

They have both the original 1957 and the new one, which I assume is the script that NETworks used back in the day. I worked on the 02-03 tour when it went non-Eq and we were one of the first tours to use Realtime's Sinfonium (I assume that these are pretty much the same tracks we had).

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/5/11 at 11:04pm

The enchanted edition is similar to the version of the show that toured with Eartha Kitt, but includes the Papermill Playhouse revisions which incorporated "Boys and Girls Like You and Me" and "Loneliness of Evening". There are a few book alterations as well. I actually liked the tour version better and was a little depressed to see that they chose to use this version instead.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 4/5/11 at 11:42pm

I loved how streamlined and simple that script was that we had for the tour. Kind of sad to hear that it has the Papermill revisions, which I had heard about, but haven't seen. I've never really cared for either of those two additional songs.

On a personal note it was also great because even with an 8:00 curtain we were starting load out by 10:00 and back on the bus around 1:00 or so if we had a good local crew.

[Ourtime992]

Posted: 4/6/11 at 8:19pm

Thanks for the information. My experience with Sinfonia, OrchExtra, and InstrumentalEase has always been positive, if also fairly expensive. A track that can be cued works very well in this space where there isn't room to house live musicians, but I will look into the cost of this option.

Has anyone been in a production of this show that opted for a small combo? I would be curious to know what instrumentation you used.