Michael Grandage: ‘Preview periods will end in my lifetime’

Director Michael Grandage has claimed a show’s first performance should be treated as an opening night, and predicted previews will soon cease to exist in theatre.

The director was speaking as part of the latest episode in Theatre Lives, a series of video interviews made by The Stage and Digital Theatre.

He said there was a “debate raging” in theatre about the preview periods for shows, and whether or not productions should treat a first preview as a press night.

“We do it in opera and I do. One of the jobs of a director, and certainly I see it as one of my jobs, is to make sure the rehearsal period is such that when you get to that first preview, you are effectively getting to an opening night,” he said.

Grandage added that he believed opening previews will become opening nights “in my own lifetime”.

“Opening previews will be opening nights before too much longer in some form. They already are, if you like, because of social media. You are opening to a body of opinion before you have officially opened and it’s all valid, at some level,” he said.

He went on to claim that most performers and creatives treat each preview as importantly as a post-press night performance.

“Everybody knows every performance counts. For the last decade we have had to deal with people writing about it from the off,” he said.

He added: “I do like to be prepared for that first performance and therefore the work that is done between the first performance and actual press [night] is minimal,” he added.

Tim Rice has previously hit out at the length of previews on a show, claiming some producers treated them as “super rehearsals”.

Grandage will helm the new stage production of Disney’s Frozen, which opens in 2018 on Broadway.

Watch the full interview here