Wicked Tour - Reduced Orchestration

[Ravenclaw]

Posted: 12/9/17 at 1:01am

I just saw Wicked on tour and had a great time, except I was disappointed to see that the tour had an orchestra of just 14 musicians, including four keyboards and no strings. The original orchestration had 23 musicians. The playbill lists "adapted orchestrations by Christopher Jahnke." The last time I saw Wicked was the Chicago sit-down production over ten years ago, so my memory may be hazy, but I believe that the full orchestration was played then. Does anyone know when these changes were made? I assumed it was a recent cost-cutting measure, but the keyboard sounds did not sound up to date (there was one tremolo strings patch in the beginning of "Defying Gravity" that was so unconvincing that I couldn't help but laugh to myself). Thanks for helping answer.

[hamiltonstradition]

Posted: 12/9/17 at 1:11pm

The Chicago sit-down  had the full orchestra, because they were there for years. Munchkinland doesn't because it's more to carry around, and they use a lot of local musicians. BUT they've also revised some parts for more commonality between all 4 currently running productions.