Actors in the spoken theatre will normally arrive in the rehearsal room without having memorised their lines from the play. A first day read-through by the whole cast is followed over days and weeks by a gradual sorting out of entrances, exits, nuances of character interpretation and so on, up to the final rehearsals on stage before the first night. During this whole process the actor gradually learns the script, alongside the interpretative elements of the particular production.
Finally, a variable number of rehearsals takes place on the stage itself, depending on the complexities of the piece and the production. The first are with piano accompaniment. During these, technical and stage management issues are sorted out - trying out furniture, checking sight-lines, getting the chorus on and off stage smoothly. Then a Sitzprobe provides the conductor with his last real opportunity to reassert some purely musical values on the production. A series of orchestral stage rehearsals follows, in which all the elements of lighting, settings and costume are brought together and fine-tuned. Meanwhile the singers get used to singing and moving to the orchestral sound, and questions of sound balance are resolved.
Finally the General Rehearsal, when nobody should stop, whatever goes wrong. This often forms the director’s only opportunity to confirm how the whole show works together before the audience sees and hears it on the first night.
