Pit/Show Pictures

I am fortunate to be called fairly often to play in opera and musical orchestras.  I’ve played about twenty different shows, and every one is unique.  Sometimes there are separate drumset and percussion parts, but just as often there’s a single part, possibly cobbled together from several other parts, combining dozens of instruments.  Because each production is customized for its cast and theatre, there are always changes, cuts, and additions to the printed page, and navigating all of that from scratch (frequently on less than a weeks notice) is a great challenge.

Here are the setups from shows I’ve played.  I started doing this in 2011 when I had to cram an amazing amount of gear into the pit for The Producers and was grateful to all the hours I spent observing my teacher, Dr. Barry Larkin in the pit at the Des Moines Civic Center.  Let me know if this is helpful or interesting to you, and if you have any pictures, stories or helpful advice to pit percussionists, please share it!

Most recent shows are at the top, oldest show at the bottom.

My setup for both Trouble in Tahiti AND Gallantry, two one-act operas we combined for a full show.  This is my first attempt to unify two shows in a single setup, and it went pretty well! I built a pretty classic “Standing Drumset” with my various drums. I went for an “older” sound with fiberskyns, as both shows are from the 50s. My new addition this show is the Sabian FRX 18″ cymbal, which I got back in 2019 and never got a chance to use until now… it’s a dream for a show like this. I used it as a crash, sus roller, stick ride AND brush ride, and in combination with my Dream 12″ Bliss Splash it makes a great full body hand cymbal replacement as well. I’m looking forward to more shows with it.

A really fun surprise were the timpani I was provided. Dresden-Style clutch action Ludwigs! Only the second set I’ve ever seen. I LOVE them, such a change of pace to feel the head push back while tuning, made things a lot smoother.

My setup for Catch Me If You Can.  This is a heavy duty swing show, with some rock and bossa nova.  I brought my favorite 20” jazz ride from West Side Story, plus a new 17” Sabian concept crash I LOVE, my 12” Dream splash, and a sizzle cymbal for the brush tunes.  I hid some bongos and sleigh bells around the hi hat for a few spots as well.  The book is pretty demanding, so much detail in the ensemble to catch in the fills and kicks.  Took a lot of advance planning and I was still hearing and marking new stuff through tech rehearsals.  Overall a really fun show and worth the effort.

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My setup for “Mamma Mia”.  This is a pretty basic rock/pop auxiliary book.  Some timpani and congas, quite a bit of glock/xylo supporting the melodies, and SO MUCH rock tambourine and cabasa.  Stretching before, during, and after to stay loose is really important.  The timpani ranges are very wide, and a third low drum would be helpful if you have the space.

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My setup for “Ragtime”.  This show is a great combination of old-time sound and really clever modern orchestration.  I used three different temple blocks for the Woodblock sound to fit the different orchestrations and characters on stage.  The Trolley Bell sound requested was a boxing bell.  A lot of the instrument switches are REALLY fast so I needed a second table almost under my seat to get them fast enough.  We added a lot of tamtam notes to the darker scenes, and I needed three cymbals to cover the complex color effects in the sus cym rolls and crashes.  Overall it’s just a really nuanced book, and worth digging into the color palette.

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My setup for “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” 1972 version.  This is not the one from 1999 with the updated cast and songs.  We did this as a piano/bass/Percussion trio and I covered a lot of the melodies on xylophone and vibes.  Overall a terrific show, with lots of great bits and really neat music.  I’d play this one any time.

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My setup for A Chorus Line!  This is a classic, more so than I ever realized.  There are SO many things in this show that get spoofed and quoted.  The vibes/glock have the heaviest parts, so everything grows out of that.  Chimes and Bass Drum on telespar with hooks for the mallets was great.  It’s very dark in all the chime spots so I used post-it tape to mark the notes.  The Matt Nolan triangles are back, with wood blocks and cowbell on a rack together.  Hanging underneath is my bell plate, played with a pedal.  SO much easier to play on the pedal.  Playing tambourine while bending pitches on timpani is a cool part of the show as well.

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My setup for Young Frankenstein!  This show is outrageously cool.  The biggest thing is three timpani.  This is the heaviest timpani I’ve played in a show besides Candide, easily over 60% of the book and really demands three drums.  I’m on two Adams Revolution drums with fine tuners and they rock my world.  My other drum is a ludwig standard collar with a gauge I built.  My upside-down 17″ Constantinople doubles as suspended and bottom crash cymbal.  The gong and bass drum hang on telespar pipe, and that works great.  My xylo/glock/vibe stack gets the job done once again, and the Matt Nolan Amsterdam triangles are back, still working great for a blendy shimmer and great clarity.

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My setup for Willy Wonka!  This is the 2004 version that combines elements of both movies.  It’s a great show, runs like clockwork.  We added the Matt Nolan Trine on the scary pink candy boat scene, and I picked up two new Matt Nolan triangles at PASIC this year specifically for the show.  They have clear focus with peripheral shimmer that’s just magnificent.  There’s a ton of hihat and suspended cymbal rolls in the show, and my 17″ Constantinople and 12″ Bliss combo made for some great sound combinations. I’m using the same kit as on West Side Story, but I switched all the heads out to G14 and Strata1000, which is a brighter, cleaner sound than the Calftone heads I had before. I prefer these for general use and they’ve been a joy to play on this run.

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My setup for West Side Story!  This was a total bucket list show (and still is on the other books) and I nearly died when I found out I was playing it.  It’s a pretty straightforward bebop kit, with a small cymbal on the left for the chokes in the Jets numbers at the beginning.  There’s a lot of snare and very sensitive hihat, and also some heavy big band stuff, so I choose versatile, slightly low tuned sounds on everything to cover it all.  I loved every minute of this run!

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My setup for Sister Act: The Musical.  This is combined drum set and percussion setup, covering as much as possible.  Fortunately, the two books don’t play at the same time very often, so it’s possible to get 80-90% of everything.  It’s my usual drum set with cymbal stackers, and the Mark tree/Triangle Trigger set up.  I added the Glock and 2.0 Vibraphonette on the sides, which works out great.  The small Vibe bars and small cymbals I’m using needed matching mallets, and the Vaughncraft Cymbal mallets are like a miracle and well worth the price.  Inspired by John Parks of Florida State recently, I used my three cymbals to make 7 different suspended roll effects, and it’s completely transformed my concept of suspended cymbal playing.  Big thanks to John for that!  My tom tuning is also a little different.  I’m putting the bottom head a whole step below the top so when I play light the tone is just flat and warm, but when I lay some weight into it there’s a really satisfying deep pitch bend down, which sounds awesome in the heavy disco tunes.  The show is pretty easy to play as long as you love disco and off-beat fills.

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My setup for Caucus: The Musical!(2016) This is an original show by Robert John Ford that runs a new version for each presidential cycle since 2008.  It gets pretty good national press coverage so you may have heard about it.  This show is hilarious fun, kind of like two hours of SNL jokes set to music.  I cobbled together a kind-of drum set from all the different sounds I needed, and used my 17″ K Constantinople and 12″ Bliss splash for most of my cymbal effects.  The triangle trigger was again, a total life saver, as it was integrated into a few swing brush tunes.  The toughest part of the show is playing about 9 minutes of typewriter within a drum set groove in the “newsroom” scenes.  I reached back into my Grad school training to employ a piano technique by Taubman to keep from getting crippling tendonitis.  This was a great show and I’m excited to play the new version in 2020!

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My setup for Into the Woods.  This is a very popular show, it gets played a lot.  I checked out quite a few pictures of other setups before I started on this one.  The timpani and keyboard parts are important, but not a big deal to play, so I left them off to the side.  The snare drum (and piccolo snare) are very important, and I used a Pearl Philharmonic 14×4″ Maple to cover them.  It’s a great drum and covers both sounds easily.  I used a single stand with an LP Mini everything rack to hold: 2 DiSanza Triangle Triggers, Finger Cymbal, Temple Blocks, Anvil and Cowbell.  I used my HiHat attachment off the low tom with a 10″ and 12″ splashes.  We used the computer program OrchExtra for many of the wind parts, so I had the Crotales and Chimes played through there, since the ranges are difficult to find and they are integrated with other sound effects in the program.  The “Giant” sounds were also run as special effects in the house, so I didn’t get to use my big bass drum.  My 22″ Leedy bass still covered the rest of the bass drum notes with a big puffy beater.  For the witches’ “rap drums” I used a KAT controller straight to the sound board and tweaked some of the sounds in it, and it was just the right amount of tacky 😀

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My setup for Spamalot.  My first full-on drum set rock show in a LONG time.  This was a blast to play, and the show is so funny.  There’s nothing special about the setup, just a sweet rock-out.  I put the Triangle Trigger way off to the outside of my ride cymbal, but really it could go anywhere.

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My setup for The Addams Family.  This show is AWESOME.  So much fun groovy latin jazz dance stuff.  I used a cajon on a drum set snare stand, and played with plastic Bundles.  The sound was great, let me play the crash cymbal and tom tom parts easily, and do the castanet licks with the back of the handles.  The conga parts are integrated into several grooves, and I played it with my left hand.  The DiSanza Triangle Trigger was a huge win for finger cymbals and triangle notes, many of which happen as kicks in the middle of grooves.

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My setup for Stravinsky’s “L’histoire du Soldat”.  This is a chamber Ballet with spoken parts, acting, dancing and a chamber orchestra.  It is SO HARD to play and completely lives up to all the hype.  I played off the James Blades 1987 edition, which is laid out very well.  The piece itself, however, is obviously the first work ever written for a “multi-percussionist”.  There are many problems to solve, and the question of how historically accurate to make solutions is a philosophical quagmire.  I personally choose to focus on ease of execution and timbral control.

I used two Pearl Philharmonic snares and one Yamaha (15×8, 14×6.5, 14×4) and a 32×16 Pearl marching bass converted for multi on Black Swamp Multilegs.  I use the thickest fiberskyn head on the playing side and the thinnest on the resonant side of the bass drum, at similar tension you can get a perfect 4th interval between them, and the center vs edge sound is almost as clear as having two timpani.  For cymbals I put a 17″ Sus Constantinople over a 16″ Bliss Crash on a HiHat, and it was fantastic.  I used my new Black Swamp DiSanza Triangle Trigger on a Buddy and Thine 6″, which was a cinch, and then mounted my Grover Silver Dry Hit tambourine upside down on a Black Swamp cradle and put a little moleskin on the rim.  I got the mallets down to just three pairs by using A. Putnam Berlioz BD beaters (light felt/Chamois), Freer two-sided timpani mallets (White/Green) and pair of Vic Firth SD2 Boleros with moleskin on the backs.

This was a ton of fun but a crazy amount of difficulty to get all the parts together.  I hope I can do it many more times in my life, but hopefully always with a group of REALLY good players!

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My setup for Mary Poppins.  This was such a smooth show, so well written, wow.  The percussion parts are highly coloristic and awesomely arranged, and I played mostly Perc 2, and wrote in a bunch from Perc 1 as well.  It’s a “Drumset Plus” setup with my ride and crashes on stackers and my toms all down.  The guiro and stick tray are mounted off my hihat, which was very convenient.  The temple block/wood block is featured a LOT in the show, as is the cowbell, the finger cymbal, and the THREE triangle parts, so I mounted them front and center.  Brand new for this show is the Black Swamp DiSanza Triangle Trigger.  It’s like a Miller Machine but 1000% more awesome.  I was only able to get one when they released at PASIC 2014, and I’ll be picking up at least one more as soon as I can.   I would happily have used four on this show, one for each triangle and one for the finger cymbal.

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My setup for South Pacific.  After Les Mis and Shrek this was a welcome, simple setup.  My usual Rogers and Hammerstein “Drumset” with timpani and glock.  This show has a Chinese tom-tom part, which I have in my “high tom” spot.  I’m using a 16″ Dream Bliss series crash cymbal for suspended and a few crashes in the waltzes.  I’m really happy with how much utility it has for it’s size.  My sticks are the Vic Firth 5A Dual-Tone, so they have a parachute-wrapped wooden ball on the bottom.  They sound great on suspended cymbal and timpani (at least good enough for the sound system) and make fast changes from snare to timpani easy.  The big winner of this show was my 1930’s Leedy 22″x14″ Bass Drum, which I tuned to be very resonant, removed all the hardware from, and put on two bass drum risers from Dixon give it a great, free-floating sound.  It rings like thunder, but still has great mellow sensitivity at low levels.  Makes my more modern drums sound like junk 🙂  I’ll be using it a lot for this older sound.

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My setup for Shrek: The Musical!  This is such a cool show, one of the best I’ve ever played.  There is a separate drum set book, so I was playing just the Percussion book.  There are a TON of instruments and special effects in here:  I have the long shelf in use again, which was really helpful to hold everything.  The “Frogs” are my temple blocks, they have a great sound, very close to Korean Dragon Mouths but with feet! The Rock tambourine parts are intense, I needed one mounted and one to shake.  The Bongo/Conga/Djembe/Doumbek jams are out of this world, and I highly recommend bringing the whole collection if you can.  I got Gibralter stands to hold my Djembe and Doumbek, and they were very impressive, if a little pricey.

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Les Miserables: UK 2009 version.  What can I even say, this is a monster.  The biggest set up I’ve ever played, and the most detailed.  Starting on the far left side, I have two lightweight yamaha boom stands holding up a perforated square pipe.  The pipe holds my wind gong, mark tree and bass drum, with the trine (purchased from Matt Nolan in the UK, thanks Matt!) sticking out beyond the music stand.  The tin cans are family size soup and beef stew, and were really loud and clear 🙂

In the middle you see the disaster of cymbals, toms, rototoms, timpani and snare drums.  I shrunk this a little and re-orchestrated some licks.  I’m using 5 cymbals on cymbal stackers (life saver), 5 toms and 3 rotos. The hihat never opens so I put it on my gibralter hoop clamp off a roto tom.  There are 4 snare drums in the show, but I put two of them on the Gretsch snare, the field drum on the lowest tom, and the “Gavrosh drum” is a 12×8″ Malacacheta Caixa from my Rio Samba days.

The keyboards look straightforward but for one thing:  The crotales are hung individually with fishing line from a short piece of perforated square pipe, which sits on the same X-stand as the xylophone.  This was the best crotale solution I’ve ever come up with.  Once I hooked them up at home, they never came off until the run was over.

I managed to play the whole show on a set of wood/felt Cloyd Duff flipper mallets, my usual snare sticks with yarn-wrapped ends and a really nice pair of the new Chris Lamb xylo mallets from Innovative.  That was great, because there are about 200 mallet changes in the show, and being able to flip the sticks instead of swap them out on a stand made half the show playable.

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My setup for Christmas Apple, an original show by Brenton Brown!  This is nearly identical to his other Chrtistmas show, Ebenezer, but he took out the concert bass drum part, which I was very thankful for.  My new Grover Bantam Weight tambourine with Roll Ring was the big winner of this show.  Brenton’s parts are always really dense with no time to change instruments whatsoever, and absolutely no time to lick fingers. It takes some effort to build up a callous tough enough to withstand the Roll Ring (it’s fine sandpaper), but it really pays off in consistency.

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My setup for Peter Pan!  A pretty straightforward “R&H Drumset Plus” with Timpani and Glock.  Notable additions are the “indian tom-toms”, board under the glock to hold my woodblocks, and my first show using the cymbal stacker as it was intended from Gibralter.  I’ll be using it as often as possible from now on, as it is a MAJOR space saver and keeps the floor clear.

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My setup for Fiddler on the Roof!  A big setup, Timpani, Drumset, Keyboards, and more.  Most pictures I’ve seen of this have the drumset sitting away from the timpani/keys, but I decided to base the whole thing off my “Rogers & Hammerstein ‘Drumset’ design”.  It worked like a dream and allowed me to get almost everything within comfortable arm’s reach.  Two BIG developments in this setup:  The use of the Gibralter Hoop Clamp, which let me hook my always-closed HiHat and Woodblock to my floor tom, and my new chime rack design.  I used 1″ perforated square pipe, which fits on any cymbal stand and some simple hooks from the hardware store.  You can see I used a cymbal stacker through the pipe to mount my mark tree.  This worked so well I’m still amazed.

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My setup for Legally Blonde!  I moved my rack toms to the left and onto their own stand, so the BD is set more like a double kick.  I also got a new, shorter HiHat stand.  Between these I have a very smooth setup from side to side, with lots of space for Avioms, Wood Blocks, Cowbells, etc.  I think this will be a regular layout for me.  My new hidden triangle is working very well.  I’m beginning to wonder if there’s anything hose clamps and fishing line CAN’T do.  The long table under the HiHat was a big space saver yet again.

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My setup for 9 to 5: The Musical!  This was a drum set + whatever you can show from two books.  The coolest new trick was the Typewriter Bell/Alarm Bell hanging to the left of the Mark Tree.  I took apart a Bell Tree (gold carrot) and tied two of the bells on a string.  I played the high one with the back of my sticks as a typewriter effect, and played a triangle roll with the big one for the Alarm Bell.  The table I first made in Sunset Blvd. was once again a big winner.

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My setup for The Wizard of Oz! This book is actually two books in one, not playable by one person, so I had to make a LOT of decisions about what got played. Most of the usual features are present: R&H “drum set plus” with timpani and glock on either side. The Lion cymbal is for “spooky sounds”, rolled on upside-down on the timpani while moving the pedal. There was no room for the gong so the stage crew bolted a mounting plate directly to the stage for me. Below you can see I have a collection of 3 cowbells, 2 woodblocks, pie tin and cookie sheet for the Tin Man’s special effects next to the glock.  I had to wrap new combo mallets out of nylon-tip Erskine Ride Sticks, and they sound and feel SO MUCH BETTER than the old ones on cymbals and timpani.  I also used my shelf idea from Sunset Blvd. for my woodblocks.  The glock is sitting on the shelf, which sticks out as a table.  In the limited space I had, there was nowhere to put a stand on the floor, and this was an awesome solution.

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My setup for Sunset Blvd before and after moving into the pit. The show came with both the drumset and percussion parts in a single percussion score, so I adjusted my bass drum tuning/beater to cover the big timpani hits, as well as the feathering in the swing tunes. I also peppered the setup with as much of the percussion part as I could hit, which includes the mounted Tambourine/Tri/Woodblock around the HiHat, the bell/mark trees and the wind gong.  I have an Aviom attached to my HiHat, which is an individually mixed 16-track headset monitor. I swapped out my usual crash for a 16″ Bliss series from Dream cymbals. Half the show is suspended cymbal with moleskin on my set sticks, and this was a perfect cymbal to do both the set crash and suspended work. Tried something new with my table: it’s a 4 foot long shelf off to my right, with things out as far as arms reach. It works REALLY well with all the fast switches I have.

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My setup for “The Beginning’s End”, another awesome original show by Brenton Brown. This is more like my intended setup for “Ebenezer”, which I had to flip because of the chimes blocking the stage. The snare way off to my right is a 13×4 Philharmonic. I could only turn it off for one number in the show, so it had to be as far as I could get it from the timpani and tuned for minimal response. My new favorite marktree+triangle stand was working great and once again my Timpani/Snare/SusCym sticks won the day.

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My setup for Ebenezer, an original production by Brenton Brown.  This show was an absolute killer in terms of leaping from one place to another. It’s two full percussion parts in one book, and took every trick I had (and a lot of blind faith) to get to the notes.  Xylo/Glock/Chimes are stacked, timpani in the center and tam-tam/BD behind my back.  I designed the setup basically backwards from this, with timpani on the left, but the chimes blocked the view to the stage.  The music had to be essentially memorized, because there was no way to put it in line with the conductor AND the instruments, plus with all the moving around and tuning there was no time to read it anyway 🙂

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My setup for The Sound of Music. This is my typical “Rogers and Hammerstein Boom-chick/Timpani/Glock plus stuff” design. Key features: Single chime note by the timpani, woodblocks played front to back, glock played sideways mostly one-handed. HiHat is always closed and had to go on the right because the timpani made it buzz. I use my usual fishing line timpani gauges, self-made SD/Timpani flip-over sticks and wrap my rattan handles with athletic tape to remove clicky noise. Overall, a pretty smooth setup and a fun show!

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My setup for The Producers! Note the Galanti 2 octave Vibraphonette which saved my bacon BIG TIME for space and the do-it-yourself timpani gauges made with fishing line, masking tape and love. That plus instrument stacking got me inside a roughly 5x6ft space with my back on the stage. Woo!

What awesome or unique designs have you come with for shows?  Share or link yourself in the comments!