According to Flaherty, “We started toying with the idea of, ‘What if this was not a traditional pit orchestra? What if it was whatever you had on hand to make theatre?’ We are going for a more acoustic feel and stretching the boundary to ask, ‘What is an instrument. How can you make music?’”
Starobin has been working to build instruments out of “garbage” and found objects, including trash bins, flexible piping, and more.
“We are approaching this sonically in a new way, by making the human body an instrument in a way that it hasn’t been heard in the past. We are taking a lot of the orchestrations and making them vocal orchestrations.”
While musicians are still integral to the production, Milazzo has reconceived the orchestrations as multi-layered vocal arrangements that ebb and flow as part of the musical storytelling.
Ugh. I adore this show and this news deflates any excitement I had in a revival. I'll just have to be content with the memory of the original touring production, which was simply gorgeous.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian