David Byrne and Broadway Union Attain Settlement for Right here Lies Love

David Byrne has reached an settlement with the American Federation of Musicians’ Native 802 over his upcoming Broadway staging of Right here Lies Love, Variety stories. The present will start previews on June seventeenth with 12 musicians after the union known as for Byrne to make the most of dwell music within the manufacturing.

“Broadway is a really particular place with the most effective musicians and performances on the earth, and we’re glad this settlement honors that custom,” Native 802 president and govt director Tina Gagliardi stated in a press release. The union beforehand criticized Byrne for his plans to make use of pre-recorded music within the musical, noting that the transfer would violate a mandated contract clause requiring 19 musicians to be employed for all musicals staged on Broadway. Gagliardi known as the backing monitor construction “an existential menace to Broadway” that threatened the livelihoods of working musicians.

The workforce behind Right here Lives Love — a musical written by Byrne and Fatboy Slim primarily based on their 2010 idea album of the identical title — defended their choice to make use of prerecorded music, arguing that it was important to the Filipino dance membership tradition depicted within the present. The musical is predicated on the rise and fall of former Filipina First Girl Imelda Marcos throughout the Individuals Energy Revolution, and former stagings of the manufacturing in London, Seattle, and Off-Broadway used pre-recorded music.

Right here Lies Love producers addressed the settlement with the Broadway union in a press release. “On behalf of our complete forged, firm and inventive workforce, we’ve got reached an settlement with Musicians Union Native 802, per the collective bargaining settlement,” they stated. “We stay up for welcoming audiences to expertise the revolutionary musical expertise that’s Right here Lies Love on the Broadway Theatre starting on Saturday, June 17.”

The producers added, “Right here Lies Love has all the time had three actor-musicians and a musical director in each manufacturing. The present’s integrity and the musical idea stays the identical.” The compromise to characteristic 12 musicians comes after the manufacturing workforce sought to have the present declared a “particular scenario,” which might permit for fewer than 19 musicians to be employed.

Right here Lies Love formally opens on July twentieth on the Broadway Theatre.