Directing: Rehearsing a musical

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Rehearsing a musical

Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Directing
Forum Discription: For questions about handling shows, actors, crew, board members, children ...or do we repeat ourselves?
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Topic: Rehearsing a musical

Posted By: peacock
Subject: Rehearsing a musical
Date Posted: 12/29/09 at 4:04pm

I am working on our rehearsal schedule for a musical to be performed in early March. How many hours total do you rehearse for a full-fledged musical with some dance numbers? I once read that you should plan 60 rehearsal hours for a full-length play and 90 for a musical. Does that sound right to those of you who have done it many times? (BTW, we are doing Wizard of Oz-RSC).< id="gwProxy" ="">< ="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" ="">

Replies:

Posted By: Gaafa
Date Posted: 12/29/09 at 9:07pm

I think you can invarably multiply these hours by upto a factor of about 10, depending upon you ameatre group & emperical skills of you production team?

Even proeatre with musical can take upto 6 weeks @ 50 hours/week, as with a standard contract.

Me thinks "You need to 'fink it all out again!" & don't restrict your production on starvation rations. Generaly with most amdram mobs here it averages 3 months/season & with a playe it can come down to about 6 to 10 weeks, with a good SM. team, plenty of luvvies & resources.

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Joe
Western Gondawandaland
turn right @ Perth.
Hear the light & see the sound.
Toi Toi Toi Chookas {{"chook [chicken] it is"}
May you always play
to a full house}

Posted By: jdtoyer
Date Posted: 12/30/09 at 1:00pm

The theatre I'm working on just finished doing that version of OZ on Dec. 20. They began rehearsals for a Dec. a Dec. 4 opening the second week in October. Plan for extra tech rehearsals and if you are using children for the Munchkins, plan to Tech their scenes first and send them on their way so you can concentrate.

We had parent wranglers in a separate room to keep the munchkins busy with activities when not needed on stage. Worked GREAT!

Remember to consider having different things happening at the same time if your facility can accommodate that. We had people jitterbugging in the classroom, scenes happening in the theatre and Ozians singing with the musical director. You can get a lot done if you plan activities with your team.

The fastest part is always the scenes with the FOUR on the yellow brick road. It's everything else that eats time. I think you'll find your four will almost know their lines from seeing the movie so many times.

Good luck.

Posted By: gaftpres
Date Posted: 1/19/10 at 10:05am

jdtoyer: I am directing Oz this summer for our theatre. Do you have any advice about the wizard head, balloon ascension, yellow brick road, scene changes. I have some fantastic visions and ideas, but it never hurts to get advice from someone that was just involved in the same show. Also, do you have any specialty items that your group may want to loan, part with etc. Thanks.

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Old volunteers never die, they just get recycled!

Posted By: gaftpres
Date Posted: 1/19/10 at 10:06am

We will start reheasalas the middle of May with performances the second week of July....approximately 8 weeks, 4 nights a week 3-4 hour rehearsals to answer the original question posed.

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Old volunteers never die, they just get recycled!

Posted By: jmausser
Date Posted: 3/23/10 at 3:24pm

You can prepare Wizard of Oz for a school in 90 rehearsal hours (I did it two years ago) but only if you make very good use of your time. As suggested above, most days you will have more than one thing going on at once. For us that meant singing and dancing (sometimes two sets of singing - Munchins and "older kids") going on at the same time. Unfortunately, we don't have a separate space that could be reasonably used for dancing. If we did we'd probably be squeezing that in too.

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Director in Leavenworth

Posted By: gelcat
Date Posted: 3/24/10 at 2:11pm

Where are you located?

We have munchkin houses, the OZ head, City of Oz door, maybe some other pieces.

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www.actorsguildonline.org
Actors Guild of Parkersburg
Parkersburg, WV

Posted By: peacock
Date Posted: 3/24/10 at 2:58pm

An update on this post. The day after I made that post the boy who was cast as Tin Man died suddenly in a choking accident. I thought at first that we would scrap our entire season, but the boys family asked us to go on- he was a very dedicated drama kid. We started up again two weeks later, and kids were depressed, in shock, angry. It was the most intense possible season. We were glad to be doing Wizard of Oz, as the story of friendships made it more meaningful. A girl stepped in for Tin Man, and it worked fine. Anway, I lost count of how much we rehearsed, probably much more than 90 hours. But it was the best thing in the world for my grieving kids.

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