During rehearsals for his new Off Broadway play, Storefront Church, John Patrick Shanley rewrote the final scene 20 times before he was satisfied. But it wasn’t until the production’s first preview, on May 16, that he discovered other scenes needed revising too. The evidence came from audiences — the sort of patrons who pay to attend Off-Broadway shows early on and have more power than they may realize to shape new plays, even one by a Pulitzer Prize-winner like Mr. Shanley (Doubt).

By Patrick Healy as seen in The New York Times