performance i: improvisation and rehearsal 171
- This is reflected in the fact that, as Stern notes, the OED identifies the first use
of the term “director” in connection with theatrical performance as occurring
in 1938, and the first use of “producer” to denote a person producing a dra-
matic performance as occurring in 1891 (2000, 8, 9 n. 29). - Note the parallel with the purpose of rehearsals for musical ensembles, as
described above. Stephen Davies has pointed out, in private communication,
that there is a further parallel. In orchestral rehearsal, musicians usually only
get their individual parts, the conductor alone having the full score. - It is important to bear in mind here that the “second night” was the second per-
formance of the play, which might not occur for some days after the “first
night.” As noted above, companies would put on a number of different plays
at the same time. Thus even quite substantial revisions between the “first
night” and the “second night” could be effected by the playwright and imple-
mented by the players. - Note that these works, while they owe some of their features to what happens
in performance, are not composed in performance. Composition is a matter of
the decisions made at different stages in the process leading up to the second
night, decisions that accommodate some revisions occurring in or suggested
by performance but don’t accommodate others. Thus we do not have here a
plausible candidate for improvisational composition. - See Gaut 1997.