The Rehearsal (TV series)

The Rehearsal is an American docu-comedy television series created, written, directed by and starring Nathan Fielder. It premiered on HBO on July 15, 2022, to critical acclaim. It was renewed for a second season in August 2022, which premiered on April 20, 2025.

Premise

The Rehearsal features Nathan Fielder, as a fictionalized version of himself, helping ordinary people rehearse upcoming difficult conversations or life events through the use of sets and actors hired to recreate real situations. The situations can be trivial, like confessing to a lie about educational history, or more complex, like raising a child. Fielder commissions extravagant sets with every detail recreated, and hires actors to inhabit these sets and practice different dialogue trees with his clients dozens of times to try to prepare them for every variable. Information used to train the actors and build the sets is often collected without the subjects' knowledge (this aspect is often played with a comedic effect).

Production

The premise for The Rehearsal developed from Fielder's series Nathan for You. In preparation for the earlier series, Fielder and his team role-played scenarios to predict how real people might react to his ridiculous suggestions, an exercise that often proved inaccurate. Fielder was inspired by the futility of the human impulse to control one's own future, which he found "really funny."

Some of the humor in The Rehearsal is derived from its extravagant sets.