How many rehearsals?

Having taken on the role of directing a one act play which has to be ready for staging in 6 weeks (including auditions) I am planning to ask the cast to attend rehearsals at least twice, hopefully three times a week. Am I asking too much? Your comments appreciated.

Moosh wrote: > Having taken on the role of directing a one act play > which has to be ready for staging in 6 weeks (including > auditions) I am planning to ask the cast to attend > rehearsals at least twice, hopefully three times a week. > Am I asking too much? How long is a piece of string? Rehearsals are a bit like training, if it's good training and you're growing and developing, it's hard to get enough. Provided the company is making measurable progress at each rehearsal, it's hard to have too much rehearsal. In reality, there's a balance to be struck between the commitment you can reasonably require from the company, being "over-rehearsed" and being ready on opening night. I personally believe "over-rehearsed" is a mis-nomer for "lost our way or focus". I've rarely, if ever, opened a show feeling that everything was just as I wanted it. But I've occasionally found it hard to sustain or create the focus required to make every moment in rehearsal count. Don't pack in so many rehearsals that you and your company run out of steam before opening night. Plan what you expect to accomplish in each rehearsal and communicate the plan to the company so that it is clear what is expected. Look for measurable progress against your plan each rehearsal. It's not just the number of hours spent rehearsing or what you plan to get out of them. It's their proximity to each other. Many of us will thrive on short, intense rehearsal periods; working most hours of the day and some of the night over a very few weeks. Others will work better when give time to themselves to go over work done in rehearsal. If you're balancing other commitments, I'd push for at least three rehearsal periods per week. Anything less than this and you may well find that the company will slip backwards between rehearsals and you'll be wasting time going over old ground each rehearsal. If you doubt your capacity to sustain the company's focus three times per week of six weeks, cut the rehearsal period to four weeks but plan a few rehearsals four times per week in the last couple of weeks. Finally, don't let anyone kid you that one act plays take half the time to rehearse that a full length play may. A good one act play will pack in everything that a full length play has into a fraction of the time. You still need the time in rehearsal to unpack this intense, condensed material and realise its potential. Cheers Grant

Would agree with everything that Grant said particularly the idea of having at least three rehearsals each week so that you build on what you learned at the last rehearsal. I'm also a firm believer that you can't master a character until you have mastered the lines and to my mind rehearsals don't truely start until the lines have been mastered. Nic

Professional companies where the performers are doing no other job and focusing full time reckon about 1 hour for each minute the play will run. Start from there and add arbitrary amounts to allow for inexperience or experience and the comparative difficulty of the piece. Add about 20 - 25 % because the cast will be losing focus between rehearsals as they have to earn a living and run families etc. In the end the only comment I will mnake is that I sort of agree with Grant "over rehearsal" happens when no creative drive enlivens rehearsals. If you are just going over the same material with no further development it's wasted time. Life's too short to stuff a mushroom www.tonymoore.id.au

I think it also depends on your cast, its size and your abilities and your directing process. I'm in a One Act at the moment (Go Quake go!) And how long have we had? I think 8 weeks? Or something like that... anyway, we are 4 weeks out now and we've really had one, maybe two rehearsals a week- and we are going okay. Depends also how involved your one act is.

I don't think three rehearsals a week is too much to ask, as an actor it is what i would expect. The cast needs to be able to committ to putting in the hours if you've only got such a short rehearsal time

Alex wrote: > you can't master a character until you have mastered the lines and to my mind rehearsals don't truely start until the lines have been mastered. Truly? Perhaps you mean until the lines have been LEARNT...I don't know that lines can be MASTERED until they are integrated with character, motivation, physical action, environment, and interaction with others onstage...all things that come from rehearsal. I personally find it very difficult to learn lines in a vacuum. Just looking at a script and repeating the lines will only carry me so far; but it's in the process of a good rehearsal that I learn the rhythms of the play, my physical and emotional journey in the context of the drama, and I definitely get a handle on my character long before I master the lines. Once I feel like I have mastered my character, however...once I feel like I understand what they want and how they would think and speak and react in the given circumstances...then it seems that lines come easily and don't need to be 'learnt' - they just 'are'. That is when it feels like 'mastery'. Cheers, Craig ~<8>-/====\---------

I have precisely 5 rehearsals to put on a two hander that is dealing with the inability of a man to cope with his brothers death. Luckily I have two incredibly talented and experienced actors playing the man and his wife. We have had so little time to explore nuances though. Last rehearsal tonight then 30 minutes on Wednesday for a tech dress. (the play only runs about 12 minutes.) Then we open Thursday. Mastery of character? I suggest my actors will still be exploring by the last night on 9th September. Life's too short to stuff a mushroom www.tonymoore.id.au