Rehearsal: Differentiation of Rehearsal Process
What's Kind, What's Wicked
Housekeeping: I’m going to put “Rehearsal:” at the start of all subject lines in this series, so you can more easily group them.
"All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds." — Doctor Pangloss, Candide
Disclaimer: While Voltaire may have effectively poked a satirical hole in Gottfried Liebnitz’s 18th-century philosophical balloon, the Panglossian view of life is alive and well in the world of theater. To paraphrase the old joke about academics: “Q: How many theater people does it take to change a light bulb? A: CHANGE????!!!!!!” Generations of theater professors have been teaching the same approach for generations. A look at the top-selling directing textbooks on Amazon reveals that most of the top 20 textbooks are decidedly long in the tooth. That’s OK—good ideas don’t have an expiration date—heck, my play analysis textbook Introduction to Play Analysis has been around 20 years as well (and is due to be released in a 3rd edition sometime this year). That said, if you lean Panglossian in your approach to rehearsal, these posts may not be for you.
In Our Last Episode: I discussed the difference between “kind” and “wicked” learning environments. If you’ve read books like Doug Lemov’s Practice Perfect or Geoff Colvin’s Talent is Overrated, you might have learned some techniques useful in kind environments; if you’ve read David Epstein’s Range or Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, you’ve encountered discussion of wicked environments. Rehearsals, I believe, include both. I found myself wondering what aspects of the rehearsal process seem to fall into each, because each type of learning benefits from different strategies and tactics.
First Pass at Differentiation: These are broad categories—at this point, I’m not digging into individual rehearsal techniques.
Kind Learning
Learning lines
Communicating or creating blocking
Memorizing blocking
[While I will be focusing on nonmusical theater, in a musical you’re talking about learning songs and choreography]
Act/Show Run-throughs (?)
Tech and Dress rehearsals
Wicked Learning
Table work
Improvisation
Stop-and-start working of scenes
In other words, rehearsals tend to begin and end with kind learning environments, and the middle part is wicked.
Would you agree? What have I missed?
I wonder, what has happened to the ensemble? What has happened to collective research and investigation into topics worth creating new pieces about? What has happened to theater as a novel art form rather than a pastiche of capers provided as divertissement?