Broadway Rehearsals

[Ellski]

Posted: 12/13/10 at 4:48pm

For a show with a one month rehearsal time, on average, how many hours of rehearsal does it have?

[fingerlakessinger]

Posted: 12/13/10 at 4:49pm

Depends on the cast size, show complexity, amount of technical aspects the show has...in other words a lot of variables. I would say (in my best guess) 6 days a week for 7 hours or so

[Fosse76]

Posted: 12/13/10 at 7:15pm

"I would say (in my best guess) 6 days a week for 7 hours or so"

At least. Musicals would be longer...and sometimes they don't have a day off.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 12/13/10 at 8:12pm

The production contract (the contract used on Broadway) guarantees at least one day off per week during rehearsals without some pretty hefty over-time payments (which any sensible producer will avoid at all costs). The standard day is 7 out of 8 1/2 hours. There are options to have a longer rehearsal day, but if that option is used then the actor must be given two days off in the work week.

[fingerlakessinger]

Posted: 12/13/10 at 8:53pm

I heard that once it gets down to crunch time for bigger budget shows, the producers tend to start paying overtime and doing longer rehearsals and maybe that extra day (so 7 days out of 7)

[metsfan]

Posted: 12/13/10 at 11:07pm

I don't know who you heard that from, but even SPIDERMAN, a show in desperate trouble with less-than-thrifty producers, takes its Equity day off. Shows may go longer hours -- certainly in tech -- but there's a day off every week. A show may go nine, ten, eleven days in a row -- especially in performance at holiday time, but that's because of where the day off comes in each week (union weeks are Monday through Sunday.)

A month of rehearsal, as the SM above pointed out, is most likely four weeks of six days a week at seven out of eight and a half (though the company can vote to reduce the lunch break to an hour if they choose).

Schedules get longer in tech of course.

[joeyvalcort]

Posted: 12/14/10 at 1:19am

Here's my $.02 on this (and anyone feel free to correct me if I get anything wrong!):

Let's assume you're talking about 4 weeks of rehearsal before they get into the theater: Easy -- 6 days a week, 7 hours rehearsal with a 1.5 hour dinner break. The actors can vote to cut the dinner break down to 1 hour. There's also something called the "straight 6" but pretend like I didn't even mention this.

So, 7 hours of actual rehearsal x 6 days x 4 weeks = 168 hours.

Once the company arrives in the theater, producers are entitled to do seven "10 out of 12's" -- which works out to be 5 hours of rehearsal, a 2 hour dinner break, then another 5 hours of rehearsal.

Not sure how that figures into the hypothetical 4 weeks you're asking about, though...

Also, FWIW, the Equity contract is available online. It's a bit of a thick read, but if you get off on that kind of stuff (hah!), check out www.actorsequity.org, choose "Document Library" then "Agreements" then "Production -- League."

Enjoy!