The week of cast

How it works

Theatre names weeks by what is in the building. Rehearsal weeks can run without costumes or lights. Technical week — also called tech week or production week — is when lights, sound, scenery, and costumes meet the actors for the first time on the set. The cast is called as a group. That is the week of the cast in the practical sense: everyone is there, on weekdays, for long hours.

Before that week, actors may have been in a rehearsal hall on a taped floor. Designers may have been in a shop. The pit may have been in a separate room. Tech week ends that split. Cues are run in order. Mistakes that only appear with a costume or a follow-spot show up on a Tuesday night, not only on opening Saturday.

The week is not always seven performances. It is a span of calls. A common shape is weekday evening rehearsals, a late night, then a weekend dress in front of an invited house. Opening can be a Thursday, a Friday, or a Saturday. The week is named for the work, not for the first paying crowd.

Weekday calls, weekend houses

Actors who hold day jobs meet the week of cast as a second shift. A 18:00 call on Wednesday is a weekday. A 14:00 Sunday dress is a weekend. Both belong to the same production week. If you are counting time off from an office, the weekday calls are the ones that collide with work. The Saturday matinee is the one that collides with everyone else’s free time.

Crew weeks run the same split. Electricians and carpenters load in on weekdays because that is when the venue is dark. The cast arrives after the set can hold them. A “dark Monday” in a running show is a weekday with no performance; during tech, Monday may be the heaviest workday of all.

Find the first full-cast tech on the call sheet — often a weekday evening. Treat every date on that sheet as a workday for the people named, including Saturday. Keep opening night separate: it is a performance date, not the whole week.

If you need office leave, ask for the weekday calls, not “the weekend of the show.” The week of the cast is the week nobody in the company has a free Tuesday, even if the poster only shows Saturday.

What “the week of” names

“The week of” in ordinary speech means the calendar week that contains a date. The week of 14 March is the week that holds that Thursday. In production language, “the week of cast” is tighter: it is the week the cast is no longer optional on the call. Understudies and swings are in the room. The show is being run, not discussed.

Film and television use “cast week” more loosely — a press week, a table-read week, a location week. Those are still weekday grids with a weekend attached. A table read on Monday is not a Saturday event. If a notice says “cast week of the 12th,” read the call times. The date in the subject line is a label. The hours are the fact.

Once the show is open, the week of the cast becomes a running week: often Tuesday through Sunday, with Monday dark. That pattern is a weekday-heavy work week that happens to include weekend performances. It is the opposite of a hobby Saturday. It is a job that uses Saturday as inventory.