Is a preview like an actual performance?

Have tickets for a preview performance of Hello Dolly next April. Can I just ask : is a preview performance a continuous performance or is it likely that the performance stops here and there for adjustments to be made? I know they tweak shows in between preview performances, but do they stop DURINGthe performance as well?

I've seen several shows in previews, including out-of-town previews, and although occasionally a member of the creative team would give a welcome/apologies if we stop speech before the show, I've never seen it happen. (Though it does.)

A preview performance is one where most of the magic does not happen but the company still gets thru the show. Producers used to understand their show was not ready to be seen and charge a considerably lower rate for these performances. In new shows the lighting is not yet right or not cued correctly with the orchestration, the orchestration is not finished and not timed out with space for audience applause or reaction, the timing of the actors lines are toyed with in order to get the best reaction from the audience, costumes may change, entire numbers written or thrown out. You get the idea, the stuff that makes a show worthy of being on Broadway is worked out during previews performances usually for a less discerning audience.

Recently, producers have discovered that audiences have no idea what they are seeing or that things could be better so they had decided to charge full price for preview performances. In a revival show like Dolly! nothing in the book will change but Bette and the other actors will change their readings each night while trying to find what works best for those actors doing the show. Actors and the entire crew rehearse even while performing at night during previews to make things better. Yes, it is an exhausting time and actors are tired.

As a Broadway professional myself I was given free tickets to a new big musical during previews and both the General Manager and Musical Supervisor pulled me aside and told me how disappointed they were to see me there and asked why, being in the business, I did not give them the courtesy to wait to see their work when it was finished. Much of any actors best work is discovered when the audience is in the room. Ms Middler certainly works that way, give the actors and designers twenty-one performances to figure it out before you spend your money on a show next time.

Mike Costa said: "A preview performance is one where most of the magic does not happen but the company still gets thru the show.

I disagree with this wholeheartedly. I enjoy seeing shows during previews and then returning to the finished product after opening if I enjoyed it the first go-around, and I have seen some of the most magical moments in memory while attending a preview.

Ms Middler certainly works that way, give the actors and designers twenty-one performances to figure it out before you spend your money on a show next time.



"

It's not consistently 21 performances. Sometimes it's 2 weeks, sometimes it's 3. Sometimes it's even 4 to 5 weeks. Depends on the show. Being such a highly regarded Broadway professional I would think you'd know this.

I've seen plenty of "magic" in preview performances. PLENTY.



Is it sometimes NOT as polished as it MIGHT be several weeks later? Sometimes. But not often enough to change one's entire experience.



Is it "wrong" of the producers to charge full price? Yes, I think it is...but as I've never felt ripped off by a preview, I don't have much to complain about. There are only two shows I can think of that my experience MIGHT have been considerably different had I waited longer would be: Shuffle Along (I saw it right before the hiatus) and Spider-man (first version they put out there). I do think I may have enjoyed SA more....but I cannot imagine that Spider-man really got better. Two shows over the dozens and dozens I have seen in previews? Not too shabby, certainly not shabby enough to "warn" people against previews.

Re SPIDER-MAN, I felt so lucky to have seen one of the Taymor-era previews. By all accounts, nearly every daffy thing I loved about that performance was gone by the time the show officially opened months later.

Early attendees of the SHUFFLE ALONG previews were also lucky-- they saw nearly an hour more of material than we later audiences got to see. I truly envy folks like Whizzer who can watch the creation of a great show in process by seeing all those first previews, and then what the shows later became.

I was at a preview of Big Fish that was stopped. Somehow some liquid spilled on the stage. There were a lot of people in the scene including one actor on stilts. Norbert Leo Butz stopped the show, saying something like "Sorry folks, this isn't safe, so we're stopping to let the crew clean it up." The curtain came down for a few minutes, then went back up and they started the scene again. Unfortunately, that was the most interesting part of the show.

The answers in this post will give you a general idea of what previews are and how they are used. As someone mentioned, preview tickets used to be less expensive than tickets for performances after opening night but that hasn't been the case in quite a few years. Previews give the cast and crew a chance to refine and in the case of new material or substantially changed material in a revival, they offer a chance to tighten and change things before opening. During previews the cast will often rehearse changes during the day and perform them at night to see how they play.

BUT, having said that, nearly all of the preview performances will run as a standard performance unless, as others have said here, something goes wrong. I have attended a lot of preview performances and, while the show might change quite a bit by the time it is frozen at opening night, it wasn't as if the preview performance looked like a rehearsal. In all likelihood you won't KNOW it is a preview.

If I understand correctly, understudies are almost never in previews; unless there is an emergency.

I've seen many previews and never had any problems except at this latest revival of tick, tick...boom! It was the first night and the sound went out during the first song. We had about a 45 minute break but we got half priced drinks out of it so it was tolerable.

dramamama611 said: "Understudies don't usually even begin rehearsal until previews, and sometimes not until opening"

Sorry mama --- but you're wrong about that. Certain off-Bway contracts allow understudies to be hired later ---but Broadway understudies generally start the week before tech starts (often earlier for musicals).

LizzieCurry said: "Is that a recent thing? I remember it coming up in the Standbys documentary that understudies/standbys aren't usually rehearsed until after opening."



While they may well not be physically "rehearsed" (i.e. on stage in costumes with sets and orchestra), they are most certainly present at rehearsals, watching, running lines, learning the cues and blocking, etc. It is true that understudy rehearsals don't happen until the show is up and running.

During the preview period, a show develops timing and pacing. So it frequently happens that a show that leaves you lukewarm in an early preview ends up enchanting you when you return to it.

At a certain point late in previews the show is "frozen." In a case of a revival of a solid show like Hello, Dolly! with a seasoned pro like Bette Midler directed by a master of the genre like Jerry Zaks, the show will probably jell early in previews.