For the past two years, junior Jasmine Qi has known her place in the orchestra pit as first violin in the musical, but this year she had to search for a seat in the audience.

Out of the past nine musicals, “Footloose” is the second to have a small group of professional musicians in place of the student orchestra, said musical director, choreographer and producer Amy Moorhead.

Nonetheless, whether the performers are accompanied by a professional band or a student orchestra, the rehearsal process is the same, Moorhead said. The cast rehearses with a recording and has at most five rehearsals with the musicians, who only join them during tech week.

When the orchestra is not involved, it is because the musical does not call for any strings instruments, Moorhead said. This year’s musical consisted of five paid professional musicians and sophomore Ryan Padua, who played percussion. Padua is the only student in the band because he asked in November if he could play in the musical.

“I do wish they could have a band [that is mostly students] to give people the chance to perform for a large crowd,” Padua said. “It doesn’t seem as right to hold a school musical and hire a professional band.”

When the student orchestra is involved, the class starts practicing the pieces in-class in December, Qi said. Qi played the violin in “Oklahoma!” and “Anything Goes.”

“It’s fun seeing the actors work with the music,” Qi said. “At first it’s really shaky, then it turns out really well. It’s really fun to be a part of that.”

Moorhead does not choose musicals each year based on whether they are written with orchestras, but said the best scenario includes the student orchestra because it is high school production.

“I like to vary the style of the musical from year-to-year and the time period that it is set in so that the students who are in the musical for multiple years get exposed to different types of musicals,” Moorhead said.

One option for musical productions is to buy recordings, but Moorhead prefers to have live music. Moorhead said it is an invaluable learning experience for musicians and performers to learn to accompany each other.

“It’s definitely challenging to work with live music whether they’re students or professionals because the tempo isn’t the same all the time,” Moorhead said. “That happens at the very highest level of theater. That’s one of the challenges, but also one of the  beautiful things about working with live musicians because it’s a conversation between the performers and the musicians.”