Also known as read-through
Actors reading the script aloud around a table — no cameras, minimal blocking — to hear pace, jokes, and confusion before you lock a draft.
Listen for deaths: jokes that need explaining, exposition that clangs aloud, silent characters who suddenly matter, and Act Two stretches where energy leaves the room. What you learn is rarely the note you feared; it is usually pace and clarity under real voices you cannot hear on the silent page alone.
Assign parts, read stage directions lightly, and keep phones away from the circle so reactions stay honest. Capture notes with timestamps or scene numbers rather than rewriting live unless the session is explicitly a working rewrite. Confusion on page twelve will cascade if you "fix" page forty first in panic.
Create a named save point before the read so post-read surgery has a clean baseline. Afterward, cluster notes by scene, then use a dialogue pass or polish only where the room proved a problem -- accept suggestions line by line so the table's truth does not become an automatic rewrite overnight.
Enough voices to cover major roles, plus someone tracking time and confusion. Friends who will be kind and honest beat a celebrity empty chair.
Better to hear strangers. Writer-performers forgive their own lines. If you must read, do not cast yourself as the protagonist you are protecting.
Sleep once if you can, then revise against the save point you named. Immediate surgery often chases the loudest laugh instead of the structural note.
Yes if audio is clear and someone still runs the room. Record with permission, then mark scenes that stalled so your polish pass targets evidence.
