Yawns to Laughs: Audiences Shape a Play

Some of these theatergoers fidgeted restlessly during a scene in “Storefront Church,” at Atlantic Theater Company, catching Mr. Shanley’s eye as he sat nearby. A couple of jokes fell flat. And a key moment for one character, Mr. Shanley realized, was undercut by a bit of dialogue — “You’re kidding me” — that landed with a thud. So he spiced up the line: “Is this one of those reality shows? Cuz I’ll kill ya both.”

Mr. Shanley, who is also the play’s director, and who has until shortly before opening night next Monday to finish making changes, said: “Preview performances are like trench warfare. You troubleshoot scene by scene based on your read of the audiences. They know when something isn’t working. You respect them or you’re dead.”

While regional American theaters hold a few nights of previews before the official opening, mostly for the actors to adjust to a live audience, and many London shows have just a week of previews, New York theater producers and directors treat them as a serious — and multiweek — creative period. Most Broadway shows have three weeks of these trial runs, when actors hone their performances or — for problem shows like the recent “Leap of Faith” — script and staging overhauls are made. Critics come toward the end of previews, and their reviews are published after opening night. Shows then run for weeks or months, or sometimes just days for flops.

Nowhere are previews regarded as more crucial, however, than at Off Broadway theater companies staging new plays and musicals. The stakes are so high for these productions that some major Off Broadway companies schedule more previews than the so-called regular performances that follow opening night. And the theater companies, which are nonprofit organizations, do so at a financial cost: Many seats at previews are discounted, and production costs are often higher during previews because the creative team and crew are on hand — and drawing salaries — to incorporate script or technical changes before critics come.

Off Broadway artistic directors dispute that they use long preview periods to make money from paying audiences before critics attend and, possibly, slaughter the shows — a strategy that Joseph Papp sometimes used at the Public Theater. Previews of three weeks or more have become the norm at many New York theater companies, as a hedge of sorts. Theaters are mounting an increasing number of world-premiere productions, and it is hard to predict how much fine-tuning they will need.

“You want to get a play into its strongest possible shape by the end of previews, so the audience loves it and the critics love it, because then you have a better chance of selling more tickets at full price,” said Neil Pepe, the artistic director of Atlantic, where “Storefront Church” is in the midst of three weeks of previews and scheduled for two weeks of regular performances.

“If we’re selling tickets, we’ll consider extending two to four weeks to sell more tickets,” he added. “That is box-office income that is very, very important to our livelihoods, and it’s also a sign of success that can attract more individual donors and corporate sponsors to the theater.”

Audience enthusiasm and strong reviews can have other payoffs too, like the possibility of a Broadway transfer that many Off Broadway theater executives covet. A successful play also has a higher monetary value when it is licensed to regional and overseas theaters, and a fraction of that licensing money goes to the Off Broadway theaters that mounted the original production. Such income is known as subsidiary rights and is usually a small but helpful revenue stream for nonprofit theaters.

“All of that can help sustain nonprofit theater, which in this country — unlike London — has little to no government support,” said Carole Rothman, artistic director of another Off Broadway company, Second Stage Theater. “But what theaters and playwrights want most is for people to enjoy a play and want to see more work from that writer or theater. That’s the lifeblood of Off Broadway.”

To that end Ms. Rothman usually schedules three weeks of previews at Second Stage, then another four weeks of regular performances. For its latest new play, “Lonely, I’m Not,” the author, Paul Weitz, was doing rewrites throughout previews, Ms. Rothman said, sharpening the romantic comedy between the two main characters: a former corporate wunderkind who has suffered a nervous breakdown, and his love interest, a young blind woman who is underestimated by her boss. The production opened in May to mostly good reviews; the run was extended by a week before it closed on Sunday.