What would seem like a purely innocent instagram post describing the term “Split Track,” Broadways swing community has taken the opportunity to call out their union for normalizing and encouraging shows to continue the split track trend. Seems like a major fumble on the social media manager here.
Split tracks have seem more and more common since Bway reopened from COVID. Long running shows often call in past cast members if there's a situation to fill in a track or a role. Being a swing is still the hardest job on Broadway.
There are hundreds of actors at any given time looking for work and yet productions want to be stingy and have one person do the work of sometimes 5 or more people without extra pay.
I agreed with the comment that also the swings who have to map out those tracks are doing creative work that allows future productions to hire even less actors by consolidating tracks together in an efficient way.
I don’t think producers realize that spending the extra money on a performer (roughly $2600/wk minimum) may, in the long run, be a good investment against having to cancel performances due to lack of coverage (which can be a loss of at least $50-100K or more depending on the show)
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