Yes....things change, sometimes not for the better. Smaller casts now, less shows per day now, although each show is a little longer. I remember the days when we did 12 shows a day in the Saloon. Basically there were two casts, an early and a late, each performer had two shows off a day, the breaks coming during the period of cast overlap.
There are several of us "oldies" that wish comedy shows would be brought back to the Playhouse. It's a great venue for them. Not too large, but large enough to hold a good crowd.
Generally, rehearsals were pretty straight-forward, as we had to learn the blocking and songs, etc. It was during the first few weeks of the public run of a show when things would start to get crazy. Things in the script that didn't work would be tossed in favor of adlibs that did. Mistakes that yielded laughs would get permanently added.
That's how the famous "candle bit" in the Hatfield Haint show and the "kick the bucket bit" in the Hoedown show entered the shows. Now, if an actor "strays" from the script, and the "higher ups" find out about it, he is severely chastised. But maybe that's for the better; there's only one or two actors there now that have the wit and timing to be able to pull off a good adlib.