After a table read, I’ve have overheard insecure, stressed-out producers whisper to each other, “You still like her? I didn’t like her voice, did you like her voice? She’s got that weird thing with her eye, did you notice that? I’m not sure if she’s going to be able to nail it…”
So you’ve got to learn how to survive the table read, one of the most misunderstood parts of the process for actors. Think of the table read as meeting your partner’s family for the first time over dinner. Sure, your significant other likes you enough to invite you to this family meal but you still need to win over his difficult siblings, stern parents, and strange aunts and uncles (who all have their own baggage, scars, and insecurities).
A typical table read involves a group of people—actors, directors, writers, producers—
who have sacrificed their time to sit around a table at a designated location to read through a script. They begin and end with everyone’s heads buried in scripts, not looking at or talking to each other. Thus, the potential to make a deep connection to the text and other actors, to really talk and really listen to them, is too often
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