Running through the entire play over and over at each rehearsal is a crude and inefficient way to
prepare a play for production. It can have merit when you’re working with a very inexperienced
cast, and you will need a few run-throughs at the end of the rehearsal process before tech week
to help everyone get a sense of the flow of the piece, but you can bring out a lot more truth and
comprehension in the play if you can explore small sections of it in depth.
But there are many different ways to divide up a play. A common way is to divide the play into
“French” scene – each time a character enters or exits it marks a new scene, and you simply
schedule rehearsals to work on the one or more scenes that feature the same group of actors.
This can get a bit confusing, especially as you’ll often be rehearsing chunks of the play out-of-
sequence, but it does mean that not all actors may be necessary for all rehearsals, which can
make for a more intimate rehearsal experience.
But in a show such as ours with no act or scene divisions and no characters who ever leave the
stage a more carefully thought-out rehearsal schedule is necessary. We will divide the play into
beats.
A beat is a very small chunk of the play that encompasses one idea. Whenever a new character
enters, the conversation changes topic, or something happens to alter the flow of the play, a new
beat begins. It’s like dividing an essay or short story into paragraphs. Some divisions are obvious
while other are subject to debate – any differences of opinion are usually settled over the course
of rehearsals, by which point they have become moot anyways.
prepare a play for production. It can have merit when you’re working with a very inexperienced
cast, and you will need a few run-throughs at the end of the rehearsal process before tech week
to help everyone get a sense of the flow of the piece, but you can bring out a lot more truth and
comprehension in the play if you can explore small sections of it in depth.
But there are many different ways to divide up a play. A common way is to divide the play into
“French” scene – each time a character enters or exits it marks a new scene, and you simply
schedule rehearsals to work on the one or more scenes that feature the same group of actors.
This can get a bit confusing, especially as you’ll often be rehearsing chunks of the play out-of-
sequence, but it does mean that not all actors may be necessary for all rehearsals, which can
make for a more intimate rehearsal experience.
But in a show such as ours with no act or scene divisions and no characters who ever leave the
stage a more carefully thought-out rehearsal schedule is necessary. We will divide the play into
beats.
A beat is a very small chunk of the play that encompasses one idea. Whenever a new character
enters, the conversation changes topic, or something happens to alter the flow of the play, a new
beat begins. It’s like dividing an essay or short story into paragraphs. Some divisions are obvious
while other are subject to debate – any differences of opinion are usually settled over the course
of rehearsals, by which point they have become moot anyways.
| Theatre Resources |
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| How to divide a play into beats |
