Play Readings, a Primer

A great and inexpensive way for playwrights and theatre producers to inexpensively look at a play is a staged reading.  I have been in a lot of play readings and seen more.  I have been involved in readings for 30 years as actor, audience member, writer and producer.  So I think I know what I'm talking about when I offer advice for actors, directors and audience members regarding the play reading.

Actors: Hire professional actors and pay them if you can
Actors know how to read plays and, especially, how to read them aloud.  They can take direction with little or no explanation.  Actors also ask very good questions about scripts and they will make choices like actors.  Non actors and playwrights (unless they are also professional actors) not so much.  Plays were meant to be acted so have actors involved as early as possible.

Directors: Don't direct.
What?  Really?  Yes!  This is not the place or the time to make a statement.  A reading is for audiences, playwrights and theatre decision makers to hear the play.  That's it.

Playwrights: Don't act or direct.
If you are an actor or a director and a playwright you already know this.  You want to sit in the audience and hear the play with everyone else.  You also want to watch the audience and their reactions.  If you're not an actor or a director, you need to know that actors and directors don't like playwrights to tell them what to do as much as playwrights don't like actors, directors and audience members to tell them what or how to write.  Also actors hate being given a line reading; that is when you show them how to say a given line.  It's like an actor spelling the word "the" for you.

Audience members: Don't rewrite the play.
If the opportunity to discuss the play arises, please remember that the playwright is the writing specialist in the room -- even if you happen to be a playwright.  Remember that the writer is interested in your experience as an audience member.  If you have a bunch of great ideas about how the play should go, please write a play and have a reading.  Before you do, please read the above.


Thanks!
Kevin Six

From New Theatre World Blogger Tiffany Tang

...I also moderate some of the readings for the San Diego Shakespeare Society, which Kevin frowns upon, but I actually get a big kick out of.

Last month we had students from Grossmont College who were studying Romeo and Juliet for the first time.  It was great.  They were getting up and reading and really getting into it (especially
after I told them that the guys basically clown around and talk about sex the whole time).  And then of course, we have solid actors like Steve Jensen doing amazing readings as Mercutio and Benvolio.

This one woman came up to me quietly during the break and asked if she might read the balcony scene as Juliet.  She was thinking, when will I ever get the chance to play Juliet?  And it was great.  Sometimes the readings make for very special evenings.  Would that be interesting for a piece?

-Read all about Tifany Tang here-