Performance By Design

One of the hardest lessons I learned as a designer was that successful shows are rarely built around what's missing. They're built around what's already there. Every spring and summer, directors begin evaluating instrumentation, assigning leadership positions, and dreaming about what next season could look like. It's an exciting time. It's also when I hear some version of the same concern: We only have three tubas. Our guard is young. We lost half our trumpet section. We don'