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Home » Guest Column » Touring Shows Hire More Local Players This Year


Touring Shows Hire More Local Players This Year

November 1, 2025

  -  AFM Director of Touring/Theatre/Booking Division and Assistant to the President

The 2025-2026 Pamphlet B and Short Engagement Touring season promises to be an interesting combination of the best of last season’s Broadway hits and popular revivals to round out the schedules of prominent theaters throughout the country.

One trend I have noticed in hiring of touring musicians on many of our shows is to have a diverse touring complement, with more young players, women and talented musicians from a variety of backgrounds. This month’s theater issue features a cover story about Suffs, which has just begun its national tour. The musicians touring on this production reflect this trend. I am sure you will find the profile interesting and informative.

In addition to Suffs, new original shows beginning this fall are Hell’s Kitchen, The Outsiders, and The Notebook. Popular tours that have been resurrected for the nation’s consumption are Beauty and the Beast, The Sound of Music, The Phantom of the Opera, and Spamalot.

The number of touring musicians traveling with the shows is somewhat less than in previous seasons. This is most likely attributable to the cost of traveling large complements of musicians. A producer’s decision to travel with fewer musicians requires them to hire more local musicians in each city to realize the score.

Suffs, for example, is touring with four musicians and picking up eight additional players in every city to match the original Broadway orchestration exactly. Phantom is hiring at least 10 locals everywhere. The Sound of Music also hires 10 locals across all venues, while Spamalot uses six local hires in every city it plays.

Most of the other new shows, such as Hell’s Kitchen and The Outsiders, stick closely to the Broadway orchestrations, which tend to be more rock group oriented. They use fewer musicians and rely on smaller rock-band rhythm sections to deliver the sound that matches the show’s content.

There is a significant local hire complement for many of the returning shows that continue to tour. Wicked hires nine local musicians in all venues. The Wiz uses six local players, Back to the Future uses five locals, while Some Like It Hot hires eight everywhere it tours. At this time, only Shucked does not hire any local players. They travel with five musicians and the orchestration does not call for any additional instrumentation.

There are still some shows that hire local players only as contractually required in certain theaters in large cities. Some examples of these shows are Beauty and the Beast, Moulin Rouge, The Lion King, Hamilton, A Beautiful Noise, and Les Misérables.

Electronic keyboards are used on almost all traveling shows, but Keycomp is still only used in two touring Disney shows: The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast. None of the new shows going out this season has opted to use this musician replacement technology.






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