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Rehearsal time frame

  • 1.  Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-19-2015 13:50

    I know we've probably all been asked why it takes so long to put on a musical. So please share with me how many weeks do you take AFTER auditions? Do you use Theatre Class time?

    Sadly, the powers that be seem to think a high quality production can happen in six weeks in a gym with no stage, no lighting, no sound, and no rehearsals past 8:00 pm, even during tech week. On top of that add no designated rehearsal space - the two available spaces are shared with three cheer squads. 

    It takes at least a week to put up the stage, surround it with curtains, bring in lighting and sound & install it, build & paint set, etc etc.

    Thoughts and words of wisdom/advice please. 

    -----------------------------
    Connie Sandoz
    Theatre Director
    Henderson NV
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  • 2.  RE: Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-20-2015 05:33

    That is a rough situation. We hold auditions in December and start rehearsals around the second week of January and the show usually goes off at the end of March or middle of April.  We typically rehearse four days a week from 2:30-5:30 (unless we get hit with tons of snow days and then go until 6:30).    

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    Allen Price
    California MD
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  • 3.  RE: Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-20-2015 06:53

    We do a Fall musical because the short and intense Spring sports season precludes athletes from joining in. We audition in June the year before, and start right in once school starts. Typically we rehearse 2-3 days a week between dance and blocking, with a long day Saturday (9-2:00) for music, dance, and blocking. We are lucky in that our auditorium director is also our TD, so he can book time as needed. The show goes up the 2 weekends before Thanksgiving; tech week starts Sunday with no actors, just the TD, techies, and myself. We do 2 full dress rehearsals on the Wednesday and Thursday before opening. Veteran's Day usually falls during Tech Week, we do rehearse that day. 

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    Rob Juergens
    High School Musical Director
    Windham ME
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  • 4.  RE: Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-20-2015 09:06

    Auditions... then 8 weeks  @ 2 hours a day / 5 days a week (3 hours per day tech week and show week + or - ).  We use significant amounts of class time to build the set...sing, act and do other ancillary things towards production.  We have about 3 - 4 weeks of that 8 week schedule with full stage-use time.  Our set is going onstage during those 3 weeks and no one else can take us out of there.   Even then we feel unprepared lots of times.  

    Word to the wise... get them on your side by making them feel like they have contributed, they are a part of things... somehow  :)  Make sure admin is on your side and they stay there.  (swimming down stream is hard enough, but try going upstream sometime.)

    break a leg!

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    Daniel Stowell
    Teacher / Director
    Dublin OH
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  • 5.  RE: Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-20-2015 10:39

    Post auditions we would spend 12 weeks. 6 hours of rehearsals per week but often run 3 simultaneous sessions (Singing, dancing, blocking) at a time with 3 different staff members/volunteers. Last week would bring it all together. All rehearsals would happen out of class time, but set building often done in my free time on weekends (sigh)! Space was always our own however, and play given priority in the final fortnight. Doing everything in 6 weeks would be tough - if not impossible. 

    Best of luck! 



    ------------------------------
    Adrienne Ferguson
    Creative Director
    TreePress
    London. United Kingdom
    adrienne@treepress.org

    www.treepress.org
    Making theatre easily accessible for everyone, everywhere.
    ------------------------------


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  • 6.  RE: Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-20-2015 10:58

    We did everything in 6 weeks my first year.  I still don't know how we pulled it off, to be honest.  I think the only reason it worked is that we did A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and our Pseudolus was pretty fabulous and he drives the whole show, so it worked.  Plus, it's a shorter show, which means less rehearsal time needed.  Still, it was insanity.

    I was taught, and have always worked off the idea, that you need an hour of rehearsal for every minute of stage time.  With  musicals, I generally think 1.5-2 hours of rehearsal for every minute of stage time!  We do a fall musical, so our schedule is

    Audition in June

    Last week of August/week before school starts - start vocal rehearsals, 2-3 hours daily

    First week of school - vocal and dance rehearsals, 2-3 hours daily

    Second week of school/third week of rehearsal - add in blocking

    We rehearse until 6 or 6:30 most nights (school is out at 3:06).  Often we'll have 3 things going on at once - I'll be working blocking in the black box while our choreographer has a group on stage working on dance and our vocal director has others in the choir room working on songs.  We do rehearse some Saturdays; usually I try to only do every other Saturday.

    Two Saturdays before opening (so 12 days out or so) we do our first tech, and then we run tech rehearsals from there on.  Generally rehearsal goes until 7, 8 at the absolute latest, until the night before we open, when we run everything at it's normal time.  We open the last Thursday of October, so we have 8-9 weeks of rehearsal.

    We don't do much rehearsing in class, though sometimes if I have two actors in the show who are in the same class period and they're struggling with a scene, I'll send them off to work that scene while I teach class, but that's a rarity.  Our vocal director will sometimes snag kids during class to work a song while someone else teaches her class (a guest artist or visiting director),  but again, it doesn't happen much.  I do have 2 periods of Stagecraft and they do all the building, painting, costuming, etc.


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    Laura Steenson
    Theatre Director
    Reynolds High School
    Troutdale OR
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  • 7.  RE:Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-20-2015 11:57
    Echoing mostly the same, when I've done a musical with more than just me. 8 weeks + tech + performances. 3:30-6:30 M-Th with F as crew (costume fittings, etc.) or added rehearsal. 3 rotating groups, if possible, music/dance/acting.

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    Jo Lane
    Theatre Teacher and Director
    Portland Public Schools
    Portland OR
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  • 8.  RE: Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-20-2015 11:42

    After a week of auditions, we begin rehearsals everyday after school from 3:00 - 5:30 and then as we get closer, til 6:00. Tech week we go until 8:00 - no longer. We are a middle school.

    A straight show will be cast and begin rehearsals first week of October. Performances usually the first week of Dec. We have lots of days off in Nov, with teacher convention, Thanksgiving, Veteran's day etc.

    It works out to be about 6 weeks of rehearsal.

    Musicals are cast before the Christmas break, and begin rehearsing after the new year. Performances are mid March. Same rehearsal timeframe - every day. I post a rehearsal schedule for the entire run at the beginning and try and stick to it. That way, not everyone has to come everyday except leads. Singing, Dancing, acting all happens in three spaces at the same time. Snow days, sharing the stage, and schoolwork are all worked around. (Lots of kids to homework at rehearsals when not being used).

    During tech week, when we go  to 8:00, I have my parents group organize meals. We stop rehearsing at 5:30, get out of costume and eat, then get dressed again and work the show.

    I build sets with the crews on Saturdays and a couple of weeknights after rehearsal, costumes are done by crews during rehearsals, as well as makeup and props and publicity (program, tix, posters, tee shirts). There are seven teachers who all handle their piece. It's a machine and works well. (We don't use class time for anything show related. It's strictly after school. (I teach 5 periods of theatre plus direct and tech direct the shows)

    Lighting and sound happen on Sundays - yes, I have no life during show time, but I love it. I work with amazing kids and have major support from admin and parents, (and a music department that is second to none. We run our musicals with a full student orchestra). 

    Can't imagine doing it any other way and create a quality show. I love hearing how others do it, so thanks for asking the question.
    ------------------------------
    Ron Wells
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  • 9.  RE: Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-20-2015 13:38

    We rehearse 8 weeks after auditions. Of course, we lose a day or three here or there, to snow/cold, or PD days or whatever. 36 days is a common number.

    I usually rehearse from 2:45 until 4:45 or 5:00. The last two weeks go to 7:30ish. I have honestly never rehearsed to 8:00, in 20+ years, and you'll have to trust me, but we do put on quality productions (given our poor theater and relatively small budget). We use an all-student orchestra, and the students build the sets (without a scene shop, although we do our best building on Saturdays).

    We do have the huge advantage of a dedicated space (although we get pre-empted by district-sponsored stuff frequently).

    For me, the key is a strong plan for each day, decided before day 1, and everybody knows exactly what's expected from them every day. Memorization happens at home.

    Perhaps some involved parents could make the case for a full schedule better than you can--it's their kids that are staying late--?

    Good luck! 



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    Michael Corliss
    Livonia MI
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  • 10.  RE: Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-21-2015 06:31

    Our musical goes up in Mid-March.

    Mid November:  Auditions

    November/December: 2-4 singing rehearsals to work on the tough songs

    January/February: 2-3 days a week, 3 hours to work singing, acting, choreography, 2-3 Saturday rehearsals 11am -6pm

    Last week in February:  first tech week, we have to rehearse in the evening because our band doesn't provide the pit so we have to rely on adults who work during the day, those are 5 hour rehearsals, 3-4 days

    First week in March:  second tech week, same as above

    Next year we move into a brand new space, and our musical director wants to start at the very beginning of November and do 3 days a week in November and December, do the same thing as above in January and February, and rehearse just about every Saturday,  or so she says.  I'm the TD for it, so I'm still working with her on figuring out how I'll get access to the stage for construction!  Our show choirs rehearse Monday, Thursday, and Fridays after school so unless we do evening rehearsals, we don't get to have them right after school on those days.

    If you condense it down to the others who do 4-5 days a week, the 4.5 months of musical rehearsal that I mention above does work out to be close to the 8-10 weeks that seems standard fare
    ------------------------------
    Raymond Palasz
    Schererville IN
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  • 11.  RE: Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-21-2015 10:35

    For our fall play, we audition in May, have production meetings, and readthroughs, and I make sure the cast knows has basic understanding of their characters and the script before we break for summer. They are all responsible for being off-book by the first rehearsal ( which is after school on the second day back. Rehearsals are 2.75 hours 5 days a week, and most Saturdays--all saturdays for a musical--for 7 hours. Our rehearsal time is 7 weeks, the last two weeks we go until 9:30 instead of stopping at 6. We have giant family dinners together and it is a really fun way to make sure dinner breaks are short and nobody leaves :-)

    Forthe March musical, we audition in October. Again so that people are off book. I don't let them on stage with a script. I love being able to get right into the details of blocking and interaction and not having them shuffle around with their faces down toward the pages. It is liberating for me and for the performers.

    I am the "coordinator" for the theatre building, and I schedule others' events during other parts of the year, so I get the stage exclusively for about 7 weeks each show.  4 before and the three weeks of the run.



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    Chris Fallows
    Director
    Brentwood CA
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  • 12.  RE: Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-21-2015 10:39

    We typically spend eight weeks on a musical, six on a straight play, and four on a bill of one-acts.  Our productions are pretty much entirely extra-curriculuar, as some of our best performers and technicians don't have room in their schedules to take theatre classes.  School is dismissed at 2:55, and (because we are a county-wide magnet school) special activity buses leave at 6, so we generally set rehearsals as 3:10 to 5:45, though during tech week we do run later - sometimes significantly later.  (We've had a very few parents - literally three or four - complain to us and directly to our principal about late tech-week rehearsals, but in each case some of our Drama Booster parents came to our defense with the complainers, and our principal told us that it was a non-issue as far as she was concerned.)  Our musical also requires some music rehearsals and full run-throughs on weekend afternoons, as we hire an outside music director who is not always available after school on weekdays.

    Our auditorium is so busy, however, that we only get one week in it for each show.  Until then, we rehearse either in our black box or in our other classroom space.  We move in on Monday of show week, and we play Thursday through Saturday, then strike the following Monday after school.  In one instance a long time ago, I was running a Monday-of-show-week rehearsal when one of our assistant principals (now long gone) came into the auditorium and began trying to set up a podium and a screen onstage - while my students were running our show!  When I took him aside and asked what he was doing, he said that some kind of parent meeting was scheduled in the auditorium at 7 that night, and he needed to set up for it.  When I pointed out that we had the space reserved, and that we would be done around 6, and asked if he could come back then to set up, he angrily replied, "Well, I don't even understand why you need to be in here today - the play isn't until Thursday!"  Some people just don't get it.


    ------------------------------
    Jeff Grove
    Theatre Teacher, Aesthetics Department Chair
    Stanton College Preparatory School
    Jacksonville FL



  • 13.  RE: Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-21-2015 10:48

    I teach at a private school and we audition our Upper School musical the first week of December for production the last week of February / first week of March.  We have a read-thru and a few preliminary rehearsals before our holiday break, but begin in earnest in January so we basically have 8 weeks.  Rehearsals run Monday thru Friday from 3:30 to 6:00 and Saturdays from 1:00 to 6:00 (for big dance or production numbers). Sunday afternoons are added in February.

    Our set is built, for the most part, during the holiday break.  However, the theater is used for several concerts in January and for three all-school morning meetings each week, and there are three classes held on stage as well, so everything it has to be moveable so that it can disappear into the wings for those events.  

    We tech on the final Saturday/Sunday before the show, have two full dress rehearsals with the orchestra and then run Wednesday afternoon (right after school) and Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 7:30 pm.  We strike everything on Sunday and audition the Middle School musical on Monday.  

    Keeps life interesting...

    -----------------------------
    Susan Speidel
    Chairman of the Performing Arts Department
    Morristown-Beard School
    Springfield NJ
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  • 14.  RE: Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-21-2015 11:49

    That sounds like you have a difficult situation.

    We rehearse 8-9 weeks after auditions. 5 days a week after school for about 2 1/2 - 3 hours.  Some of these rehearsals are dance, some vocal, some blocking and some a combination of each.

    We begin Tech two weeks from opening.  These rehearsals go later.  When we bring in the orchestra, we move rehearsals to the evening, often beginning at 6:00pm and ending no later than 9:30pm 

    We build sets in the theatre on Saturdays about 4-5 weeks before we open.  At that point, no one can use the stage for events--only guest speakers.

    I am supported by my administration with this schedule--whether or not they fully understand the amount of work that goes into a musical is another thing entirely.  It sounds like your administration is very supportive of 3 cheerleading squads.  I hope that when you present them with this information, they will be more supportive of your program.

    Good luck!

    ------------------------------
    Cindy Skelton
    Drama Teacher
    San Mateo Union High School District
    Burlingame CA
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  • 15.  RE:Rehearsal time frame

    Posted 05-22-2015 21:35
    For a musical, we rehearse 8-12 weeks depending on the amount of dance, since that takes the longest to learn. We rehearse 6 hours a week up until tech, at which point we rehearse 4-5 hours/day for 3 or 4 days. We are never there past 7:00. I do have a dedicated theatre space, but it frequently gets used for whatever admin or other groups need. This year, they used it during the day of my opening night. I do not rehearse during class, but ix have done shows entirely through class in the past.

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    Heather Brandon
    Bakersfield CA
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