dress rehearsal

English

Noun

dress rehearsal (plural dress rehearsals)

1. (theater) A rehearsal prior to a public spectacle, where all the performers are in costume, in order to test all aspects of the production by closely reproducing the actual conditions of a performance.

   We've got three dress rehearsals before the opening night to prepare ourselves for any potential technicalities.

2. The final rehearsal before a performance, whether or not costumes or performance dress are worn.
3. (by extension) Any complex activity that serves to prepare for a more important iteration of it later.

   Although the train derailment ended up not being very serious, the emergency services' response served as a dress rehearsal in case of a much worse disaster.

   • 1960 December, “The Glasgow Suburban Electrification is opened”, in Trains Illustrated, page 712:

     Sunday, November 6, was spent in a second full-scale dress rehearsal of the complete weekday electric timetable, [...] during which the public were invited to make their first trial of the trains—and 15,000 did so.

   • 2024 April 12, Shane Goldmacher, quoting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “Ocasio-Cortez Never Steered Money to a Key Arm of Her Party. Until Now.”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     And if anybody thinks that that was not a dress rehearsal for what they may try to attempt in January of 2025, I’m sorry to say, but I think that’s a very naïve assumption.

Hyponyms

• wet dress rehearsal

Translations

rehearsal prior to a public spectacle, where all the performers are in costume

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 綵排／彩排 (zh) (cǎipái)

• Czech: generální zkouška f, generálka (cs) f (informally)
• Danish: generalprøve c
• Dutch: generale repetitie f
• Faroese: aðalroynd f
• Finnish: kenraali (fi), kenraaliharjoitus (fi) (if only one), pukuharjoitus
• French: répétition générale (fr) f
• German: Generalprobe (de) f, Hauptprobe (de) f
• Hungarian: főpróba (hu)
• Icelandic: aðalæfing f
• Japanese: please add this translation if you can
• Maori: whakaharatau whanotū
• Norwegian: generalprøve m or f

  Bokmål: generalprøve

  Nynorsk: generalprøve

• Polish: próba generalna f
• Portuguese: ensaio geral m
• Russian: генера́льная репети́ция f (generálʹnaja repetícija)
• Spanish: ensayo general m
• Swedish: generalrepetition (sv) c, genrep (sv) n
• Ukrainian: генеральна репетиція f (heneralʹna repetycija)

final rehearsal

• Finnish: kenraaliharjoitus (fi)