The Creation of a New Musical - Part 7: Preproduction: Readings

(a series of articles about how new musicals come to pass)

Preproduction: the period of time during which work is done on a show prior to the first rehearsal.

(For definition of the roles of some of the personnel involved in this article, see the article entitled Preproduction Glossary - Personnel.)

At some point, before a musical in development is declared completed and flawless, the writers (and their backers, if they have any yet) will want to get an idea of what the show will "sound like"; at least they will if they have any sense. Experiencing the flow of a project straight through, with actors in the roles, and with songs in place, is quite different than the more minute, stop-and-start-look-at-a-section kind of view the creators will have had up to this point. So, they will embark on what is known as a reading.

Although the creators may have read and sung through their work on their own, a reading is most often the first time outsiders get added to the mix. In addition to actors in the roles, now there may be a director, a musical director and/or accompanist, assorted other creative types and, on some occasions, an audience.

Actors Equity (the actors' union) has some very precise rules regarding the use of actors and their time in reading situations. Depending on the cast members and their enthusiasm for the project, these rules may be made to flex more than Equity would like to admit.

Readings come in a variety of flavors, from the extremely informal to the very specific. The bottom line of a reading, however, is that there are scripts in hand (although occasionally actors will have become familiar enough with the material that they may want to put the script aside briefly for performance purposes).

(Be aware that several of the following terms are not necessarily in common usage but were created to help categorize the different types of reading. Often these are referred to simply as readings.)

 

Informal Readings. These can be anything from the creators themselves sitting around the piano reading and singing through the script, to a bunch of actors sitting around the piano reading and/or singing through the script. The actors may also sit around the piano reading the script, with the creators sitting around the piano singing the score.

Script-only Readings. In order to facilitate an informal and/or cold reading, the actors may be asked to read the dialogue without learning the score--which may be sung by the creators or some ringers, or played by a recording.