For actors rehearsal is a necessity, an essential part of their professional life, as it is for business folk who pitch. Or as it should be. Here are some thoughts on rehearsal from “Acting for the Better”, an excellent book by Mary Hasbury. It is aimed at actors but the thinking holds true for the pitch.

“Rehearsal is when the real work is done. The play has to be brought to life and become sufficiently fluent and polished to present to an audience”. It is what the  audience take out, not  what you put in.

She discusses various other aspects of rehearsal. For example:

” Give roughly the same amount of rehearsal to scene endings as you do to the beginnings.” In a pitch,  work on hand-overs!

” Remember that it is in rehearsal that positioning and groupings are worked out. Only the director ‘out front’ can see what the picture looks like to the audience.”  The pitch rehearsal without someone ‘out front’ achieves little.

“Rehearsal is the time to try out degrees of emotion, how best to use pauses, when to shine and when to fade into the background. Then when it comes to the actual performance, you reproduce everything that you have evolved and developed in rehearsal.”  To perform at your best, you must rehearse.