Thank you all for your responses. I have no choice but to do twice a week right now so I will just have to make the best of it.

On a side note, for all of you folks who rehearse 4 to 5 times a week or more, are your actors volunteers or do they get paid? Again, I have been in community theatre productions, but it's my first go with my own theater. It seems like a lot of time for people to volunteer so I was just wondering if folks to it willingly.

Very small community theatre here ... yes we rehearse for 7 1/2 weeks and run Thurs through Sunday and then the following Thurs - Sun.  We rehearse 4 times a week from 6:30 to 9:00.  In all it takes up 9 weeks of our summer.  (Musical)  Director, music director and accompanist receive a stipend, which basically covers gas.

When my high school does musicals, we rehearse 3 days a week for 90 to 120 minutes each time.  We do that for... wait for it... 10-11 weeks.  Partly that's because I get impatient and want to start rehearsals as soon as school starts.  Partly that's because I have some kids who would be getting into trouble if not in rehearsals instead.  ANNNND partly that's because we do have a lot of conflicts...

Monday has conflicts from weekly JV football games.  Tuesday and Thursday are volleyball.  Friday is totally out because of football games (band, cheerleaders, football players... plus the kids want to be there).  Wednesday is still the unofficial "church night" here in the Bible Belt.  Thus, we rehearse longer because my lead might be missing every single Monday rehearsal (as happened last year) or half my female leads might show up halfway through when their VB game is over.

We're doing Seussical next year, and we'll definitely need all that time to learn music.  The downside is that between the play and the musical, I'm in rehearsal for a show 20 out of 36 weeks of school.

Anyway, the last CT show I was in, the musical All Shook Up, was unique.  We kept asking for longer rehearsal times so we could work more.  We did three days a week for five weeks, but due to the amount of music and choreography, we regularly ended up doing four or five hour rehearsals.  We'd come in early and stay late... is it any wonder we had audiences saying it was the best show they'd seen in that CT?

Very interesting discussion.  We generally run 3 nights a week, 2-3 hours a night.  6 weeks for non-musical, 8 or 9 for musicals.  Rarely on the weekends - that is usually when we build the set.  We are in the middle of a run of The Producers.  This is the biggest show we have ever done, we had two weeks of tech rehearsal (Sunday - Thursday) with a night off each week to give the cast a break.  The show is being very well received! Good Luck!