Benefit of a Reading
The Benefits of a Reading--
The Jury's First Public Outing
by Diana Howie
I have produced a lot of readings of new plays and musicals in the past 14 years - over 90 of them - and I can say that every one of those readings helped the author see the work in a new light. Even so, this was not even in my mind as we approached the first public exposure of our project.
The Jury’s (www.thejurymusical.com) first public reading was in September 2003. The public was invited, but as is so often with a reading, it was friends and family that showed up. This might not be the most objective audience, but at least it was a group of about 80 people, making it a reasonably-sized audience for most small theaters.
If one is self-producing or working with an organization with no funds earmarked for developmental work, a reading of a musical (as compared to a play) is not the easiest thing to do. (It's one thing to ask talent to contribute their time to one rehearsal and then do the reading; it's quite another to ask them to contribute the necessary 30+ hours of work for a musical performance.) Actors, the director, and the musical director must put in this substantial amount of rehearsal time for the cast to learn the songs and be able to sing them convincingly in character. Ensemble songs only increase the amount of rehearsal time necessary. Somehow there never seems to be enough rehearsal time to fine-tune those songs, especially if the talent is working "on the cheap."
For The Jury's reading we attempted no staged blocking, but did it simply, the cast standing with music stands in front of us. (I say, us, because one of the actors did not show and this bookwriter had to fill in. And one of the leads lost her mid-range voice mid-way through the reading.) Still, the audience was forgiving and enthusiastic. They easily imagined the action, and the excitement of seeing a brand new work carried them through to the end. They could hardly wait to immediately tell us what they thought, both complementary and critical, and they perceived themes in the work that we had not deliberately placed there. Some seasoned pros among them met with us a couple days later and shared their copious comments and notes, both specific and general.
Two weeks later, after all the comments had been received, we began work again on the script and the music, taking to heart the criticisms that we felt were quite valid. Questions about character motivation were addressed; areas that dragged were revisited; missing plot elements were inserted; songs were dropped, and new ones added. We did, indeed, see the piece in a new light: through the eyes of the first-time viewers.
And we saved ourselves some real trouble down the road. By doing the reading we learned that there were major problems in the placement of some of the songs, particularly the individual character-defining numbers. If we hadn't done a public reading and gone straight into a workshop production, we would have identified those problems in the very first performance, but would not have been able to fix them within the run of the workshop. We would have had to keep looking at our mistakes over and over again. The readings shined a light on that problem area and saved us from a big headache.
The Jury's First Public Outing
by Diana Howie
I have produced a lot of readings of new plays and musicals in the past 14 years - over 90 of them - and I can say that every one of those readings helped the author see the work in a new light. Even so, this was not even in my mind as we approached the first public exposure of our project.
The Jury’s (www.thejurymusical.com) first public reading was in September 2003. The public was invited, but as is so often with a reading, it was friends and family that showed up. This might not be the most objective audience, but at least it was a group of about 80 people, making it a reasonably-sized audience for most small theaters.
If one is self-producing or working with an organization with no funds earmarked for developmental work, a reading of a musical (as compared to a play) is not the easiest thing to do. (It's one thing to ask talent to contribute their time to one rehearsal and then do the reading; it's quite another to ask them to contribute the necessary 30+ hours of work for a musical performance.) Actors, the director, and the musical director must put in this substantial amount of rehearsal time for the cast to learn the songs and be able to sing them convincingly in character. Ensemble songs only increase the amount of rehearsal time necessary. Somehow there never seems to be enough rehearsal time to fine-tune those songs, especially if the talent is working "on the cheap."
For The Jury's reading we attempted no staged blocking, but did it simply, the cast standing with music stands in front of us. (I say, us, because one of the actors did not show and this bookwriter had to fill in. And one of the leads lost her mid-range voice mid-way through the reading.) Still, the audience was forgiving and enthusiastic. They easily imagined the action, and the excitement of seeing a brand new work carried them through to the end. They could hardly wait to immediately tell us what they thought, both complementary and critical, and they perceived themes in the work that we had not deliberately placed there. Some seasoned pros among them met with us a couple days later and shared their copious comments and notes, both specific and general.
Two weeks later, after all the comments had been received, we began work again on the script and the music, taking to heart the criticisms that we felt were quite valid. Questions about character motivation were addressed; areas that dragged were revisited; missing plot elements were inserted; songs were dropped, and new ones added. We did, indeed, see the piece in a new light: through the eyes of the first-time viewers.
And we saved ourselves some real trouble down the road. By doing the reading we learned that there were major problems in the placement of some of the songs, particularly the individual character-defining numbers. If we hadn't done a public reading and gone straight into a workshop production, we would have identified those problems in the very first performance, but would not have been able to fix them within the run of the workshop. We would have had to keep looking at our mistakes over and over again. The readings shined a light on that problem area and saved us from a big headache.
posted by Anna Williams at 8:53 PM
