What is a staged reading?

Question

What is a staged reading?

Answer 1

Mmmkay....what Raceal fails to understand is that a staged reading is not meant to be posing or fake-artistic but it is for a work in progress.  (apparently Raceal deleted their  post?  Oops. Sorry!)

Even if the playwright has supposedly finished the play it is for his or her benefit to see it on stage and how the lines and stage directions work with real actors reading it.

The audience is there to also provide feedback on how the play worked for an audience and what they thought and felt as the reading was going on.

Most playwrights feel a staged reading is vital to the final touches of the play and knowing if their vision works with real actors on stage -- thus it is a great benefit to get the best actors possible to do the reading -- yet sometimes the audience feedback is less helpful though the audience`s time and thoughts are appreciated.

There was one notorious staged reading where several members said they loved the play and it seemed like the general feeling of the audience was that it was a great success.

Then one audience member said...you know there is a problem in the second act...and the whole group started mumbling in agreement. In a few seconds the whole discussion took a turn to the audience members hacking away at one scene in the second act.

So...the magic of group dynamics can be helpful or not depending on the mentality of the group -- thus when I do a staged reading it is by invitation only -- not of my friends (some of whom might well leap onto a second act hashing bandwagon) but people invited by the directors and actors of my local theater who are frequent audience members of all kinds of plays and would have useful things to say if they say anything at all.

Even that -- for my staged reading in May -- was not enough to keep away the person who said ``the scenes with Malcolm need to be fixed`` but refuse to elaborate.

So...a staged reading is not an artistic stunt at all but is a tool for the playwright.

Answer 2

A staged reading is kind of like a play, except the actors don't have their lines memorized. They carry their scripts with them onstage. They're generally put together in a couple weeks or less. In my opinion, they're kind of dumb. People say they're "artistic", but they seem just plain lazy to me.

EDIT: Maybe for you, that's true. However, I've seen a local theater do a staged reading and it wasn't for the playwright. It was simply for a performance. So that's the experience I have with it!