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What's happened to PREVIEWS?! | Thoughts on the changing West End and Broadway theatre industry
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Mayra Amit
A Mochi moment from Tara who writes for years all my doctor said was eat less and move more, which never worked. But you know what does? The simple eating tips from my nutritionist at Mochi. And after losing over 30 pounds, I can say you're not just another GLP One source, you're a life source. Thanks Tara. I'm Mayra Amit, founder of Mochi Health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com.
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Mickey Jo
What do you think of when I say preview performances? Perhaps you're thinking early initial version of a show that is still in development and subject to major change. Except for the fact that for the majority of shows, we don't see that many significant changes during the preview period anymore. Maybe you're thinking it's a time for the show to get on its feet before critics come in and officially review. You know, we always hear don't review a first preview performance. Except for the fact that in the social media age, you now have audience members going to early previews, first previews, and sharing all of their extensive critical thoughts about those shows on social media, making the critical embargo increasingly feel a little moot and more than a little restrictive. Maybe you're thinking about a great opportunity for audiences to see a show before its official opening night for a reduced ticket price. Except for the fact that many new shows opening in the West End aren't charging any less, and certainly not significantly less for preview performances versus regular shows after it's opened. All of which begs the question, what even are previews anymore? And are they a thing of the past? And if so, what the hell does that mean for the theatre industry? Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening to this on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. As a professional theatre critic, as a content creator here on social media, and as a Lifelo Theatre fan. Most weeks I spend anywhere between four and seven nights of the week at the theatre. It is truly my favourite place in the world to be, which is why I care so deeply, perhaps even a little too passionately, about conversations just like this one. But after what happened at the beginning of this week with the first preview performance of the Hunger Games and all of the online conversation which has been unfolding since I was at that first preview performance, I shared my own perspective of it in vlog style Coverage here on YouTube a few days ago. I've been thinking a lot about first previews and whether still benefit the theatre industry and whether they need to be fundamentally reworked, whether we've got a little too far away from the idea of what a preview is supposed to be, and whether producers and audience members alike have lost sight of their true purpose. So today we are going to have that difficult conversation. And as always, for it to be a proper full conversation, it requires not only my perspective here, but also yours. Please share all of your thoughts about first previews in the comments section. And before it gets too theoretical and convoluted, I would also love to introduce Lighter topic as well. Let me know which first previews you have been to in the past and we will see who in the comments can lay claim to the most exciting first preview of all time. Off the top of my head, I have been to the first previews not only of the Hunger Games recently, but also Dear Evan Hansen in the West End, the first ever regional world premiere preview performance of the Great Gatsby musical. But I dare say many of you in the comments down below are going to have some really interesting history with that. So do let me know. And if you enjoy listening to my thoughts about first previews and the possibility that they no longer exist whatsoever, please feel free to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Turn on Notifications Follow me on podcast platforms do whatever you need to do to make sure that you stay up to date with all things Mickey Joe Theater, but In the meantime, let's have this conversation. Our first previews Are previews in general a thing of the past? Now, from comments, I know that a handful of you watch my videos, listen to what I have to say about the theater industry because you like my perspective on it, but you aren't necessarily hardcore theater goers and I don't want to leave anyone behind here. So to begin, explain what previews are, and let's clear up a common misconception I get all the time. So for most major productions that run for any significant amount of time prior to a show's official opening night, it will actually have started performances, and the first thing that happens is a brief, usually period, of preview performances. These take place before the show officially opens and before it is ready to be considered the final open product. And the reason for this is to act as something of a cold open. I guess restaurants do this as well, and a handful of other businesses that are reliant on customers and an audience and participants in order to really hone whatever it is that they are trying to deliver. Entertainment on screen doesn't need to worry about this in the same way. Yes, they have test audiences and focus groups and all sorts, but they're not in the same way reliant on that transactional, live relationship with an audience. And you can keep rehearsing a piece of theatre, but until you have bodies in the room and honest, responsive bodies who aren't the cast and crew, friends and family, or the rest of the company or the producers or the investors, then you won't really know what it is that you have. I've spoken to many actors who have been rehearsing shows that went on to be huge hits, who have shared that during the rehearsal process they had no idea how it was going to go. They had no idea if an audience was going to get it, if they were going to respond to it, it's very difficult when you're creating something in an emotional vacuum. Figure out how it's going to be received. Is this the right time for this show? Is this saying the same thing as another show that opened last month? Are we in the shadow of something else? Is it going to be misinterpreted? Is it clear enough? You know, when you've been working on something with a director for weeks and you've talked and talked around this issue, it is easy theoretically to lose sight of the extent to which there is clarity in your storytelling. So before the official opening night, we have previews. These are the first public performances after what is Usually a closed prior dress rehearsal when audience members can go and see the show. They are still paying for tickets, but they are seeing a preview performance which is not the official final product. And this is because it's subject to change. And the show from one night to the next could vary. Things could be taken out, things could be added in, costumes could be changed. Entire things could be restructured. Songs could be completely removed. And that happens quite often. Songs could also be added in. There are some interesting accounts through history of some really pivotal musical numbers that were written in during previews. Anecdotally, I think someone said to me once that Stephen Sondheim was often pressured to do a lot of his best work during preview periods. I also remember being at the 25th anniversary performance of Mamma Mia. In the West End and listening to a little clip of the producers and creatives and the people who really built the show together, reflecting repeatedly after preview performances on the fact that something about the first 15 minutes just wasn't working and they had to retool it slightly. And I remember in that moment thinking, how many of the shows were are really honing themselves to that extent. Who else is staying up until 3am every night after previews because something isn't quite hitting? Because I go and see a lot of shows where something isn't connecting in the first 15 minutes and I don't think the time has necessarily been spent until three in the morning in Soho House every night of the week trying to pinpoint exactly what it is. And a big part of that, I feel, is that fewer shows really significantly evolve and find themselves during previews compared with how they used to. But we're going to get to that conversation. For now, let's continue to define previews kind of by the standard of what they used to be, which is a performance that would have a significantly enough reduced ticket price. They would be cheaper, more accessible performances, which made them appealing to audience members who otherwise wouldn't necessarily want to go and see something that is, you know, labeled as an unfinished product. The way it works on Broadway is interesting because often there are no midweek matinees and the evening shows start at 8pm to give them more rehearsal time during the day to affect and discover and implement changes before you arrive at a point in the preview period, which is usually a little bit longer in New York than it is in London, where the show is frozen, which means that is the finished product. There are going to be no more changes. That is not always in conjunction with opening night, as is usually in Conjunction with the start of press preview performances. That is what I'm given to understand. So in New York, critics will be invited to the final handful of previews, based on which they will review the show. They do not go to the opening night performance, but they release their reviews in conjunction with it when the embargo lifts. Here in London, it's a little bit different because for the most part, the critics will go and review the opening night performance, which is why we call it press night. Sometimes that's done a little bit differently. Sometimes critics go under embargo a couple of nights early or just the night before. Sometimes it's the night after and you're playing catch up. Interestingly enough, as more and more producers and theater makers work in a transatlantic capacity, we are starting to see that American model moving over here slightly. I don't know if that's interesting to anyone else here other than me. I think it's fascinating. But generally speaking, shows that open in the UK don't seem to have as long a preview period as shows in the us. And I'm not just talking about ones that have controversial months and months of previews like Turn off the Dark Did. What you can generally see, though, is something of a correlation between the complexity of the show, how intricate it is, how many moving parts there are, how long it's going to take to really perfect, and the duration of the preview period. For example, Paddington the Musical at the Savoy has an unusually long one by comparison. They have basically an entire month of pre previews before their official opening night. And I say all of this in the hopes that people will stop misusing the idea of opening night when they actually mean first preview. And social media teams are actually guilty of this as well. We are all kind of spreading the misinformation of what opening night actually means. Because when they are trying to get people excited for a show to begin performances like they did with the Hunger Games, they will often say, like, one week until opening night. Only it's not opening night, it's the first preview. And I think that goes some of the way towards creating an atmosphere of confusion that will distract from the reality of what the preview is meant to be. And that's where I think we are now. So here is the central problem which has motivated me sitting down here and saying all of this, which is previews ain't what they used to be. And what I mean by that is twofold. The problem that we are seeing in the first place is that audience members are going to something like the first preview of the Hunger Games. And I don't want to single that out. It hasn't been the only first preview of late or this year in the UK that has encountered logistical challenges with the audience or started a little late. Burlesque, the musical at the Savoy, also started late, also finished late. Stranger Things, the first Shadow, when it opened in London, is another one that I don't think let audience members into the building until just before half past seven when the show was scheduled to begin. But you have an audience, and I'm not trying to blame or slander or judge anyone here, but who have booked for the first preview performance of a brand new show. I a big brand new show that is complex and challenging and has aerial choreography and fight sequences and a whole lot of literally moving parts. Not only that, in the case of the Hunger Games, it's also at a brand new venue, a theatre that has never before hosted a theatrical performance. It has been purpose built, it is newly unveiled to the public, and there is a lot that needs to be in place for all of this to be open, for it to be audience ready. And there is for some reason, outrage when it isn't. In spite of the fact that if you look back over the decades of theatre in the West End and on Broadway, there is a long and proud history of haphazard first preview performances, of cancelled first preview performances. There are various theatres that regularly cancel their first few previews almost every single show. They end up not doing the first preview. And for some reason there is less outrage around that and the financial implications that that has for audience members who, yes, will be refunded, but who have possibly already made travel plans, who have book overnight stays, who have booked flights, perhaps who have planned their entire trips around this night at the theatre. Then there is for a first preview when the show runs longer than anyone is expecting it to, in the case of the Hunger Games, for upwards of three hours and starts later than advertised at 8:30 rather than 7:30. And to all of these stunned and perhaps outraged audience members, to everyone who is taking to Twitter to say that we were the real tributes in the Hunger Games because we were standing on the street for a couple of hours before the theater opened and some people have said it was raining, there was a light drizzle for 10 minutes. Everyone can absolutely calm down. I would remind people that this is what a first preview is and can be. And if you're booking for that performance, then you are taking something of a risk because the show is certainly not by that point, a product which has been tried and tested. If you want to be among the first people ever to get to experience something, then you have to be open to the possibility that there are going to be teething problems. It's like a new land at a theme park or an entirely new theme park, or the first day of a local fair. Do you really want to be the first person on a ride? And if you do and it breaks down, then it isn't necessarily completely justifiable to be surprised. However, and this is a big capital H, however. In fact, the entire word however is in capital letters here. All of the grace and the goodwill that I extend towards first preview performances and not judging things that might go wrong and not judging a late start time is wrapped up in the mutual understanding between audience and producer that this is going to be a preview performance that we won't go online and unduly judge on the basis that the ticket price is lower than it is for regular performances. And not just that, not just like £5 less per ticket band, but significantly lower. Someone on my recent video said all preview tickets should be under ten pounds. That might be a little bit extreme, but certainly we are not seeing preview prices like we used to across almost all shows. And for an evening like the Hunger Games, had all tickets been £25, had there been more clarity around the fact that this is a preview. There is no guarantee about the start time of what you are seeing had it been sold as like the first preview evening. And they never said 7:30. And they said our hope will be to present the show as close to 7:30 as possible. But there is the possibility that that might not happen then I think there would have been less backlash, less outrage, and people would have been perhaps more empowered to make travel plans that were more conducive to an 11:45 finish, which is what ended up happening. But the bigger issue than transparency I think is the one around price. And I saw producers after the first preview of Burlesque and the conversation that was happening on social media about that, saying it's a preview. What don't Aud understand? Why aren't you treating it like a preview? Well, it's because you're not pricing it like a preview. The previews for Burlesque, from what I could tell, and I was checking on this after they had sold very well. So this might be after some dynamic pricing, but they seemed at that point to be no less expensive than the regular performances. There seemed to be no price difference between pre opening night and post opening night, which by the way, is insane and something that sadly is becoming more common. And if there is a reduction during previews, it is isn't nearly enough in consideration of the fact that this might be a considerably less finished product. And if you're going to do that as a producer, then what you are doing is gambling. You are taking a risk. And I said the audience members who book a first preview performance or an early preview are taking a risk themselves. So are the producers. Because if you are going to price your previews basically at the same price point as your regular performances, you are gambling and you are hoping that what you are able to present is basically a finished product or a successful enough product where nothing is going wrong. But you still might tinker with the material that people won't begrudge an almost full ticket price. And I have been to early previews that have seemed basically ready. I have also been to early previews that have not. And that is up to you as a producer to decide how confident you are in the readiness of this show. And it's difficult because by the time you've set the preview price, you don't really have the capacity to know what the show is going to be like in those early previews. That decision happens far too far away for you to be able to base it on how the rehearsals are going. That being said, for something like the Hunger Games, which we all knew was going to be logistically overwhelming, was also happening at a brand new venue. It probably would have been smarter to do very reduced price previews with a lot of very loud, very obvious, very bright flashing clarity about the fact this is a preview. Things may go wrong and it deserves to be celebrated. The fact that there was no real showstop. There were some prolonged pauses, but no showstop. Nothing derailed, figuratively or literally during this performance, which I would call a successful first preview. The theatre going experience with the hour delay, with the inaccessibility issues that have been talked about on social media, was not so. To summarise, if producers don't want audience members to judge a first preview, they need to charge them way less. But in the age of social media, do we actually think that would make a difference? Would that goodwill extend far enough to prevent audience members immediately taking to TikTok or Twitter or Instagram and talking entirely about their negative experience of a first preview?
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Mayra Amit
A mochi moment from Mark, who writes, I just want to thank you for making GLP1s affordable. What would have been over $1,000 a month is just $99 a month. With Mochi money shouldn't be a barrier to healthy weight. Three months in and I have smaller jeans and a bigger wallet. You're the best. Thanks, Mark. I'm Mayra Ahmed, founder of Mochi Health. To find your Mochi moment, visit join mochi.com Mark is a Mochi member, compensated for his story.
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Mark Marin
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Mickey Jo
So I think two things have happened here and I think the industry has shifted and the way that previews have been priced and also the way way that they are presented to audience members and the clarity of whether or not what you're seeing is a preview performance has changed somewhat. But I also think that this is either in conjunction with or perhaps even pursuant to changes in social media. And I'm not naive enough to suggest that people were never bad mouthing first previews in decades gone by. I just don't think that that bad mouthing was as loud or as widespread as when people now do it with their phone camera in front of their face. Because before you would have to go on the street and tell it to a friend. If a first preview was a disaster, you would go out onto the street and you would say, oh my God, that first preview was a disaster. And then that friend would go meet up with their friend and be like, oh, did you hear Jeremy saw the first preview because it was a disaster. And then by that point that friend is telling a fourth person, oh well, a friend of my friend said the first preview was a disaster. But I feel like that fourth person who hears that from a friend of a friend of their friend is putting a little bit less faith in it. Or should I say was putting a little bit less faith in it. And at a certain point, point you need to go and see it for yourself. But if you remain that second person the entire time and you're watching a TikTok that goes out to thousands of people, sometimes tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, to say, I went to go see this show, this high profile new opening everyone has been anticipating and it's terrible. It's a disaster based on a first preview performance. Then I feel a lot more people may be convinced, maybe swayed, may be poisoned against the show in comparison to how they would have been in years gone by before social media. Because it is allowing that person, that individual who is leaving the theater and wanting to rant about their experience and the disaster that they just perceived, rather than telling one friend on the street, they can now tell everyone. And I have seen a lot of sharing of what are inherently very subjective opinions about shows like the Hunger Games. I've seen a lot of that this week where people are saying, like, it entirely disregards all of the political plot points. It doesn't care about politics whatsoever. And then you see people reading that and repeating that and saying that the show saying, I can't believe the new Hunger Games has, like, cut all of the political themes. I can't believe the new Hunger Games doesn't want to be political. And you are inferring from one person's first preview perspective so much about the show and ultimately mischaracterizing it, which is a big part of the reason why critics are not allowed to review first previews. But how much of a difference is there between critics who will create an entire review of something and the audience members who go to first preview and who are under no embargo whatsoever? And nor should they be. They paid for a ticket, so they have every right to say what they want to about the show. There is no restriction on that. But in an age when people are engaging less and less with print media or with traditional reviews, chances are they will see more of those perspectives than they will of the actual critics whose job it is to go and appraise this fairly and in context. I'm also of the opinion that everyone deserves to have their own opinion when it comes to theatre and everyone should be able to review. That being said, I know that I am doing a better job of reviewing theatre now than I was doing when I was an eager 16 year old trying to see as much as possible. I know I am doing a more responsible and considerate job now. And I know that I have more references in my mind and I have a more developed and practiced insight into what is shaping this piece of theatre and why it works and why it doesn't. And also the things that they are invoking and how an audience is responding to it. Because you develop an eye for that, you develop an ear for that. But I also know that when I was a teenager, you could not have told me that mine was not the most informed, the most educated opinion. If anything, I feel like I'm more mindful now of the fact that I don't know everything that I was back then. I knew everything when I was 18 years old. I had the right opinion on every single show. I was absolutely insufferable. And so I get how audience members who have been really excited to be in that early audience, and many of whom are perhaps aspiring content creators who want to, to, you know, get out that content before anyone else and who book a first preview for that reason so they can be the first person to go on and say, this is what this show is like. This is what this new Broadway musical revival is like that everyone's been waiting to hear about. And I am going to tell you, it's an exciting thing to be able to do and I understand why people do it. It doesn't make it responsible unless you do it in a way that is. What isn't responsible whatsoever, by the way, is people bootlegging first previews. That's just insane. Even actors who are not that anti bootleg will take to social media and say, dear Lord, don't bootleg the first preview. Like Joy woods and Jasmine Amy Rogers, Broadway stars. The both of them have said, like, stop watching our first preview or regional out of town bootlegs. We've got better since then. Stop torturing us with this old footage of our performances that have now come a long way. I can't tell you how many performances I have seen develop and change and frankly improve wildly from early previews to even a few weeks into the release run. They are still very early in rehearsals. Yes, you can pay for a ticket and go and see it and you deserve a great show because you've paid often a very high ticket price. It doesn't mean that you are seeing the best version of it that it's ever going to be or capturing that for posterity. You shouldn't be bootlegging in the theater regardless. But it does do the actors, I think, a disservice. They have only just started doing it with people in the room. They have only just started hearing how long that applause section is going to be or hearing a gasp that's going to arise. They've only just started to do it with that real emotional connection to a thousand strangers watching them in the dark, some of whom, for some baffling reason, have brought video cameras. And yet, while the performances may develop and do develop, the shows themselves don't seem to change nearly as Much in previews as they used to. In fact, these days, if a show wants to affect real substantial changes, often those are only going to happen when they open a new production. I'm thinking about Stranger Things and the changes that happen to that Moving from London to New York. I'm thinking about a bunch of Broadway musicals that make changes for their first national touring productions, like Mrs. Doubtfire, like Mean Girls. Usually we then end up seeing those changed versions in the West End or even more changes are added. Frozen, Another example of this. Even shows that seem to be really successful before 6 was fantastically successful in London. There was no suggestion that they needed to tweak it whatsoever. But they did regardless. And they made some small beneficial changes when they opened the show in North America that were then subsequently implemented in London. Wicked's lighting plot got changed on Broadway because of things they did in the London production. Things get updated and retroactively changed. But that isn't all necessarily happening in previews, not the way that it used to. We have heard of songs being rewritten for older musicals in previews, entirely new songs being created and pivotal show altering songs being added in at that last minute. If you want to know what first preview performances of the past have been like, then I urge you to go and listen to listen to some of the bootleg recordings that I condemned. I know it's a double standard, but trust me, go listen to it. Of Angela Lansbury singing Sweeney Todd and desperately trying to find a single lyric. Admittedly very challenging material. I wouldn't want to be the first person out the gate singing Sondheim either. Nowadays we can all learn it by listening to her. Can you imagine being Angela Lansbury and being handed Mrs. Lovett material? Being showed a little Priest or By the Sea or the Worst Pies in London and not having anyone else to go and listen to. Like she had to be the first person to do it. Madness. But that's the kind of grace that I try and grant to people who are unveiling challenging work for the very first time. And like I said, it used to be the case that those previews would be moments for real change. Now it feels as though, like some things get a little slicker, some things get a little tighter and they fiddle with characterizations and intentions. But we aren't doing big rewrites of the material in the way that we used to. We aren't doing different endings, we aren't doing new numbers, cutting old numbers, not in the same way. In fact, I'm struggling to think of the last show that really changed in any kind of a substantial way during the preview period. All that keeps playing on my mind is the Angelo Webber musicals that he closes down for a week or a couple weeks at a time in order to make changes before reopening them. And it actually materializes. He's just cut a bar here and there or changed Ramin Karimlu's shirt from white to black, as if that's going to majorly change the outcome of the production. And listen, perhaps unexpected and unfair for Angelo Webber to be catching strays in this video about first Prince previews, but he is writing a new musical for the first time in a little while and that is going to be unveiled potentially as soon as 2026 and that's going to have its own first preview. And you bet I'm going to be at that one. Catch me at the bar before the Show Drinking a 16 pound glass of wine and I wonder if the reluctance to make real changes or conversely, the inclination to have as finished a product as possible on stage is a result of the social media age and the additional layers of scrutiny now being perceived by producers. The knowledge that there is a very high possibility they will get bootlegged on their first preview that people are going to take to social media, that aspiring content creators have booked seats deliberately to make content that isn't a review but essentially is.
- [28:44]
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- [29:15]
Mayra Amit
A Mochi moment from Sadie who writes I'm not crying, you're crying. This is what I said during my first appointment with my physician at Mochi because I didn't have to convince him I needed needed a GLP one. He understood and I felt supported, not judged. I came for the weight loss and stayed for the empathy. Thanks Sadie. I'm Mayra Ameth, founder of Mochi Health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com.
- [29:41]
Mickey Jo
Sadie is a Mochi member, compensated for her story. All of which begs the question, what is the solution? What needs to happen with previews and why does it matter that we need Previews. Is this just a inevitable change of the way that theatre works, or should we try and return to the system that we once had? And I think, you know, for every show that opens in previews very successfully to an essentially finished product that people would be happy to pay top dollar for, there are going to be those that are more problematic or flawed or not quite ready. And for the benefit of those productions, I think we still need previews. I think all productions still need previews. And the only reason, reason that they're trying not to seem like they do is because of this social media scrutiny. I think audiences need to ease up on the preview period just a little bit and grant more grace to those shows. But that has to be a reciprocal relationship in response to the lowering of preview prices. If producers don't want this, if they don't want to destroy the concept of what the preview used to be and what the preview could still be, then we need to lower the ticket prices. I'm not saying they need to be ridiculously low, I'm not saying sub 10 pounds, but I do think that probably no one should be paying more than £100 or whatever the Broadway equivalent of that is in their ecosystem for a preview performance. Maybe you think even that's too high. Maybe 75 pounds should be like the top ticket price in a preview performance. And maybe for something that is likely to face more logistical challenges like a Hunger Games, maybe It should be £25 tickets throughout the auditorium. Another part of why I wanted to have this conversation is because I saw my friend Ashley. Ashley Hufford made a brilliant TikTok about it. If you aren't following Ashley on TikTok, then you are missing out on a big part of the theatre community. She is just brilliant. But she was talking about another side of the preview experience which has less to do with like, oh, I'm seeing a show that's not quite ready and there might be changes. She was talking about the enjoyment and the thrill of going to see a preview and something that she did more when she was younger, going to see early Broadway performances, which were significantly cheaper. I would also celebrate that time. I would make it clearer to audiences that they were seeing something, something that could change, and the kind of excitement and novelty of seeing a performance that could be entirely unique, telling audience members that night you are seeing a show that could never be like this ever again. There are audience members who have heard songs that were added in and taken out the next night. So some people have heard versions of material that never existed again. How's that for a unique and novel theatrical experience? Broadway, I think, generally has always been a lot better at this than we are are in London. Maybe that's because their preview periods are longer, but they often give out first preview gifts, whether that is a poster, a window card, a first preview baseball cap. I got one of those at Dear Evan Hansen, because American producers coming over here with a transfer of a Broadway show, but all of that not only reminds the audience what we're at is a first preview. Remember the context and see it through that lens with that kind of an excitement, but also a grace and a respect for the ongoing rehearsal of it all. But it also cultivates an atmosphere of excitement and enthusiasm. And unfortunately, an hour delay walking into the building with none of that pomp and circumstance with a we probably should have cancelled, but we've decided not to, doesn't achieve the same thing. I think we should go back to first preview gifts throughout the auditorium. I'd like a free baseball cap. I don't know that anyone wouldn't. But also, more than that, we should go back to celebrating the positives of being at a preview. We shouldn't be hiding the fact and saying like, oh, one week till opening night, by the way, it's a preview. We should be saying, you're at a preview. This is amazing. And also Ashley said this on TikTok as well after a conversation that she had had with some other mutual friends. What if there were QR codes as you were leaving the auditorium so that you could give feedback? Because it's all very well and good having people come in just to be warm bodies and seeing if the strangers sat in the dark, laugh and cry and stand up and how many seconds they clap for. But what if you could actually get more robust, more thorough responses? What if you could actually hear from people like, oh, I wasn't entirely sure when this happened. This felt like a little bit of a plot hole or that made me think of this, or I've actually been through this and I wish that had been handled with a little more care. So many shows would benefit from these kind of specific human, emotional and intellectual responses. And I don't know why they don't do more to cultivate this during the preview period and get more of this free feedback. I've seen a lot of shows sort of presented in concert and in development. Just recently I saw the book Thief New musical in concert, which had QR codes and feedback forms dotted around the auditorium. I only really saw them before and I didn't see them after, they probably were happening and people were probably doing their best to share this with people who bought tickets and solicit feedback. I just think it's a really valuable and underrated thing that isn't being engaged enough. I think audiences, and early preview audiences specifically, are a far more valuable reason source than Broadway producers are considering. For now, even though there's probably more that I could say about previews, I've probably forgotten some kind of a point that I wanted to make. That is everything that I have to say about the erosion of previews and the first preview performance. I would love, love, love, love for people to weigh in on this. Remember, let me know which first previews you have been to throughout history, because I would like to know. I think that's a fun little thing to talk about, but also what you think of the bigger picture here for the industry. Are we losing the first preview? Are shows under additional pressure these days? Days? Is social media a part of it? Am I helping? Am I making it worse? Am I the problem? Am I the drama? Am I the villain here? What's going on? Let me know all your thoughts re theater previews. Let's talk about it in the comments and stay tuned for as always, more thoughts from me, more reviews, more theatre coverage coming very soon. To make sure you don't miss it, make sure to subscribe here on YouTube. Go follow me on podcast platforms if you would prefer, or if that's how you're hearing me right now. As always, thank you so much for listening and I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have have a stagey day for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.
- [36:01]
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