My production is having trouble making the actors audible over the orchestra.
At my school, we don't have a real pit. We have a stage that is raised and an area in front of it on the same plane as the audience where the orchestra used to sit. After years and years of crappy sound, we finally remedied that by putting our orchestra behind the set last year for Cabaret. We tried to use that tactic again, however the Set design consists of a cityscape silhouette made out of ten flats in a v upstage (Guys and Dolls). The set is all up and every light is focused, so there's really no way to change that now. Yesterday, the orchestra tried out their space for the first time and could not bear the confines of the space, so they are suggesting they move back to the pit.
How can we prevent the orchestra from blasting out the actors? Asking them just to play softly isn't the solution, just as asking actors to sing louder isn't. The conductor suggested a sort of barrier to muffle the sound, but we have two weeks left until the show, and our set still isn't 100% finished, so I don't know where we'd get the time to build that. Any suggestions are more than welcome.
At my school, we don't have a real pit. We have a stage that is raised and an area in front of it on the same plane as the audience where the orchestra used to sit. After years and years of crappy sound, we finally remedied that by putting our orchestra behind the set last year for Cabaret. We tried to use that tactic again, however the Set design consists of a cityscape silhouette made out of ten flats in a v upstage (Guys and Dolls). The set is all up and every light is focused, so there's really no way to change that now. Yesterday, the orchestra tried out their space for the first time and could not bear the confines of the space, so they are suggesting they move back to the pit.
How can we prevent the orchestra from blasting out the actors? Asking them just to play softly isn't the solution, just as asking actors to sing louder isn't. The conductor suggested a sort of barrier to muffle the sound, but we have two weeks left until the show, and our set still isn't 100% finished, so I don't know where we'd get the time to build that. Any suggestions are more than welcome.