I do a lot of musical theatre and work almost exclusively in 44.1 (because I back up my computer playback with CDs).
Unless there's something going on that you haven't explained then I don't see the need for 48.
Ok, well, unless the playback device is only capable of playing back music recorded at 48Khz, like an old ADAT machine or something, this doesn't make any sense. You said it was a computer with the sessions on it (which will play back 44.1 material just fine), sooooo again - you were told some nonsense . There's a good reason to record everything at 44.1 (that being that you're ending up on a CD at some point), and no reason to record anything at 48, based on all that's been said here - stick with 44.1.It's a theatre production/musical. Obviously,for cost efficiency reasons we will use pre recorded material and the actors/singers will be singing over it. I was told that for that, I needed to be at a 48 sample rate.
Even if at the theatre they use a computer with the loaded sessions on it? They won't use a CD and the singers will sing live to it
Ok, at the next production meeting I'll try to get better answer. One thing I really don't want to do is to say: Hey! I was told that 48kh was bullcrap and I am doing everything in 44kh. Hehe