Selections from Ken Levine’s HuffPo post today:

The director must encourage everyone to share ideas. He must then discard 80% of them…

You need six weeks to rehearse a musical. But if you have six weeks, you’ll need eight.

If the choreographer had her way, seven of the eight hours of rehearsal everyday would be devoted to the dance numbers. If the music director had his way, those same seven hours would be devoted to teaching and practicing the music.

If there’s a fight scene or even fight moment there has to be a daily fight rehearsal before a performance. For West Side Story you can rehearse without the knives.

Wireless mics that stick out of cast members foreheads produce better sound and are not noticeable and distracting beyond the fiftieth row.

You need a good drummer. A real good drummer.

See a night time performance rather than a matinee.

Actors need to yell out their dialogue. Not just speak loud, but YELL. Even if the line is "Pssst, let me tell you a secret."

When your wife or girlfriend needs forty-five minutes to change her clothes, just know it can be done in as little as ten seconds.

Every performer comes from a dysfunctional family but thanks them profusely in their Playbill bio.

Most people pad their Playbill bios, listing every credit since they played a kitty in grammar school.

During performances there are nine people walking around with headsets. No one knows who they are or what they’re doing.

A good running time, including a fifteen minute intermission is 2:20.

No two people have the same script. Everyone is on stage working off different drafts.

It’s always better to say it in a song rather than dialogue. But those few lines of dialogue can galvanize the entire story.

Casting decisions are still the most important. Everything else can be fixed. Except if you want to do C-SPAN: The Musical, that idea might kill it.

That’s about right.