What Preview Audiences Are Telling You (And How to Listen)

Written by Producer & TMS Mentor, Jonathan Hogue

Hey {{ first_name }},

You've got a new musical or play that you've been working on for years. 

It's been through readings, and workshops, and development sessions, and rehearsals, and now…

You're in previews.

It's perhaps the most exciting - and terrifying- stage of a production's life. Right before the final version of the show is revealed, you and your creative team have one final stretch to make sure your show is the absolute best it can be before it is fully released to the world as a complete product.

And so, as you approach opening night in just a few weeks (with a "freeze" date that is coming even sooner), it's time to start listening to your newest - and arguably most important - collaborator.

Your audience.

Here are four things I look for from audiences during the preview process:

1. Takeaways

What are audiences talking about when they leave the show? What is their emotional response? How are they describing the show on social media? What words do they use to describe their experience? When you're deep in the creative process on a new show, it can be hard to fully predict how an audience will respond to the show you've so carefully crafted, and whether your initial goals for how the piece will resonate align with reality. Paying attention to these initial responses not only supports your work as you continue to refine the show, but also helps you in your marketing efforts as you learn more about what kind of keywords and descriptors best suit your show and might attract new ticket buyers.

2. Highlights

What are the moments where the show really soars? These are usually easy to track with big laughter and standing ovations. But I also like to ask individual preview audiences to articulate their personal highlights from the show - favorite characters, moments, songs, etc. - to better gauge which key elements are really working, which might indicate which elements are worth emphasizing further in marketing and social media. If a certain character, song, or moment really captures an audience during a performance, I start thinking about pushing it more into promotional material - if it's resonating with my audience inside the theatre, it will surely resonate outside as well.

3. Points of Confusion

Previews are the great test of a show's coherence. It can be surprisingly easy for logical gaps and confusing story beats to be overlooked by the creative team in the rehearsal process as they get too familiar with the material. It's once an audience starts to engage with the show completely cold that those gaps start to reveal themselves. In tandem with asking select audiences about the moments they loved, I also try to suss out what elements left them confused or conflicted, as these are the areas most important to fix before the show is locked for opening night. While many shows have a certain sense of dramatic ambiguity that leaves audiences asking important questions, it's key to differentiate between what the audience needs to know to follow the story you're telling and what can be left open for personal interpretation.

4. Energy Levels

This one is the hardest to sense, especially because audience energy can shift from night to night (a Tuesday night crowd is usually much less raucous than a Friday night crowd, but even those trends can be bucked by a variety of factors). However, after watching multiple previews in a row, you start to see trends in how audiences are regularly responding to the show. Even in a drama, you can sense when a collective audience is holding its breath in a moment of tension, and when an audience is becoming restless because a moment is dragging on too long. Once these trends in energy levels start to become clearer, it's time for you and your team to spring into action to decide what is causing a dip in energy and what can be done to get the audience engaged again. Of course, all shows need peaks and valleys - a broad comedy needs moments to breathe, and a somber drama needs moments of levity; otherwise, an audience member can become easily exhausted. Once you've got your audience riding along with your show through every turn, you know you've got a hit on your hands!

While much of your audience assessment during the preview process will come from sitting in the room during a performance, there are also plenty of online spaces to survey honest audience responses (ShowScore, Reddit, BroadwayWorld, and all social media platforms). Of course, one negative comment isn't enough reason to panic, as one person's taste might not dictate the response of audiences as a whole - but it's worth listening to all criticisms as you work through your final touches in the show's final days leading to opening night.

And then, once the show is frozen, the work is done… it's time to celebrate! Because even if the show feels unfinished (very few writers ever feel "done" writing their shows), you've crossed the biggest hurdle of all, and your show is now ready for the world to enjoy