The Theatre Question Amnesty Thread

The problem is often not so much driving as parking. The only theatres I ever used to go to regularly by car were Chichester, Stratford, Barbican and Almeida - the former two because of limited public transport options and the latter two because due to where I live it used to be faster to get home and there was cheap parking.  

I'm not sure about musical theatre song cycles but I wouldn't say that definition fits some classical music ones. Song cycles such as Schubert's Die Schone Mullerin and Winterreise do have a narrative thread.

Could it be a production that is really twee, such as something by Fredrick Ashton. But i don't know and I'm guessing.

I'm not sure how it applies to theatre but chocolate box as a term is used to describe something that is pretty in an conventional or ideal way so like a chocolate box cottage. If I were to guess, I'd say a chocolate box production is something that is traditional and doesn't do anything new or dramatic. 

Thanks for that, I'll have a listen.

Workshops vary, but you are broadly correct. It is working or reworking a piece with an intent to improve it or generate creative ideas amongst the the team.


Examples may include:

A week to workshop certain elements to figure out how an area of an intended production might be staged. Things like puppetry or a large automated piece may well have a workshop, so that the director and creatives may have a clear idea before proper rehearsals begin, budget assigned etc. 

You may workshop a show that has been successful in another market before its transfer. A Broadway musical may need Anglicising, changing references a British audience may not get etc. 

You may workshop a show to try and fix some long standing issue. If the show is old you may want to look at how you might update it for a modern audience. Doing this in a workshop means the eventual cast only need learn the "new" version and not a version that will be changed, and give confidence to investors that the product is suitable for the current era.


A workshop may range from a scene or two to the whole show, and may be a fully private affair, or shown to potential investors, or even have a couple of  public performances to gauge interest. 

Just because a piece is workshopped it is no guarantee of a production ever actually being produced. I know several people who workshopped a stage musical of Pink Floyd's The Wall and have been slightly bummed out ever since that it never made it any further. On the other hand a friend was off doing a workshop of a musical adaptation of a British sitcom and it sounded to me on the face of it a bit naff, but he insisted it worked really well. That show was Only Fools And Horses, being workshopped about two years before it made a public performance. 

Martin Green and that Emma Rice are going to be 'workshopping' Keli at Hull Truck in late August/ early September.

Tickets now available. It's all 'appening in 'Ull!

www.hulltruck.co.uk/whats-on/drama/keli-a-work-in-progress-sharing/

Actors will be paid for their time at usual rehearsal rates etc. If they are good in the part they may land the role in future, recast into a different role, or simply not be hired. Their contract is likely to be for that workshop only. Actors getting credit for the piece itself is very rare in the UK, seen more as a talking prop than a creative role. 

What do understudies do when they don't have another role in the show? I'm thinking of someone like Jack Wilcox who covers for Charlie Stemp in Crazy for You. Do they have normal office jobs and get a call during the day to say "Charlie's sick, can you do tonight please?"

Thanks for your answers in advance

I did a bit of this and although I would have been less elaborate sets than these, they can get taken down in a few hours. It'll be done immediately after the last show finishes.

It can be anything from a few hours to 3 days. The Les Mis tour took 3 days to get in to Glasgow and that was 24 hours a day, although it was in the first venue of the tour and they had much more time to do it. I imagine they probably usually do it in a day. 

The staff doing the 'get outs' and 'get ins' get paid a very very high hourly rate, due to the strict timings and the heavy lifting involved and it almost always being over night.