Rehearse, Rewrite, Relearn: The Benefit of Grant-Supported Rehearsal Time for New Work

By Billy McEntee, Communications Associate
January 6, 2020

The Company of Dance Nation; photo by Joan Marcus 

At Playwrights, our new works are revised, staged, and memorized in a head-spinning four-week period. Consider that there’s one week to tech the entire play and tinker with its design elements and the creative team is left with just three weeks of pure rehearsal, development, and — if no hiccups strike — perhaps some table work to flesh out characters and revel in script analysis. Needless to say, time is of the essence.

It’s also a luxury not every rehearsal period has. As a producer of new plays and musicals, the premieres we stage are breathing organisms, constantly in development even during our preview performances. And when new musicals or plays are also juggling singing, choreography, and other involved elements on top of rewrites and blocking shifts, having less than a month can make the creative process a sprint. 

“Having an extra week for the actors to develop their relationship both personally and professionally was invaluable.”

This extra week of rehearsal benefits epic and intimate shows alike. “At the center of Gregory S. Moss’s Indian Summer was a love story between two teenagers,” director Carolyn Cantor shares. “Having an extra week for the actors to develop their relationship both personally and professionally was invaluable. The extra time allowed us to investigate the play together more slowly, which yielded infinitely richer performances.”

Indian Summer featuring Elise Kibler and Owen Campbell; photo by Joan Marcus.  

In the brief weeks a cast and director are normally given, there is no rehearsal time to waste in executing the staging, incorporating new pages, and fleshing out the world of the play or indulging in character development.  “The ability to campaign for extra rehearsal time is based on two things,” Sue Ferziger says, “what a funder will support and what artistic director Tim Sanford and general manager Carol Fishman determine a show needs.”

“We were inventing a new form in which every single performance was equally experienced by Deaf and hearing audiences; it was the first play to ever attempt this in the history of Off-Broadway theater.”

As the Associate Director of Institutional Giving and Campaign, Sue plays a major role in applying for and securing the funds to provide our productions with extra rehearsal time, a boon in the swift production processes for Off-Broadway shows. About two plays a season — including our recent Antlia Pneumatica, The Profane, The Treasurer, This Flat Earth, and Dance Nation, amongst others — have benefited from this extra time. But where does one apply to gain this show-specific support?

“The Edgerton Foundation is the main funder of extra rehearsal time,” Sue says. “They have been very generous, supporting extra time for 13 Playwrights productions, but only fund world premieres.” Fortunately, many Playwrights works are indeed world premieres. But for those that are not, the development team seeks out funds on more of a case-by-case basis, applying to individual donors or organizations for support. Usually, an extra week is afforded, and while six working days may not seem that extensive they indeed makes an indelible impact on the polishing of new works.

“I Was Most Alive with You was a bilingual play in English and American Sign Language,” director Tyne Rafaeli says. “It had multiple Deaf and hearing actors performing in two languages simultaneously. We were inventing a new form in which every single performance was equally experienced by Deaf and hearing audiences; it was the first play to ever attempt this in the history of Off-Broadway theater. This epic undertaking was only possible with additional rehearsal time.”

I Was Most Alive with You featuring Russell Harvard; photo by Joan Marcus 

The extra time also allowed the creative team to learn about what the Deaf actors in the room needed to do their work properly,” she adds. “These rooms were built by the hearing, and it was essential for equality of experience that we had the time to understand what the Deaf artists needed, and allow management and production to provide that environment before we started staging and running the show.”

“Often there is so much pressure just to get a play staged in the rehearsal time allotted,” Carolyn says. “Knowing that I was not under the gun in the typical fashion was a gift.”