Opening night? Closing? Theater artists break down the best time to see a play.

Actor Cherry Jones famously said her best night in "Doubt," which ran on Broadway for 525 performances and then toured, was about the 700th one in Minneapolis, long after she had stowed away the Tony Award she won for the drama.

Maybe you were in luck and saw that show — or maybe you're a completist who saw all 700-something shows — but a lot of us don't have that kind of time. Which prompts the question: If you want to see a play or musical at its best, when in the run should you go?

Come early, said Carman Lacivita, who was in "Emma" at the Guthrie Theater last summer. Really early.

"If you enjoy seeing a rough draft of what it will end up being, I would come during previews," said Lacivita. "It's exciting. In a world premiere process, things will definitely change. That said, I usually invite friends after opening. I don't think it matters when, but it will be richer. Jokes will settle in more."

Come late, said actor/artistic director Austene Van. She loves first-night audiences, filled with friends of the artists, but believes they're not always the sharpest shows.

"I feel like we're tight. The ingredients haven't all come together yet. It hasn't simmered," said Van, whose Yellow Tree Theatre opens a double bill of Agatha Christie plays Sept. 24. "I feel like it gets settled that second week. And then closing night. Everyone really knows the piece inside and out. We're comfortable. There's more fire, more synergy. And it's the last one, so we lay it all out there."

Other opinions fall in between previews and closing night.

Adan Varela, who was in "Twelve Angry Men" at Theater Latté Da, said a good show gets better throughout the run: "For 'Twelve Angry Men,' especially, I had an almost completely different experience with it by the time we closed than I had in previews. It wasn't that it changed so much but I'd hear different things onstage every night and it would feel different the next day."

Michael Brindisi, artistic director of Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, knows that's not easy to capture. He likes openings because "the show is new. There's an edge (which is good). The performers are nervous (which is good). Not always, obviously, but it's surprising how quickly a show can get slick. It's a challenge to keep it fresh, to get the opening week feel."

One thing to consider when choosing dates is the run's length, said musical director Anita Ruth, who has worked on shows that ran for a couple of weeks or a couple of years.

"If it's a [run of a] year, I would say maybe a month in is best, before it starts to get too rote," Ruth said. "But if it's five weeks, I'd say come on Friday or Saturday of the second week. Obviously, opening night there's all the adrenaline and that's fun, but I would say wait a little while — it gets better and better."

If it's a shorter run — at a smaller theater that doesn't have the luxury of the one-week preview period that Guthrie or Chanhassen shows have — actor/director Joseph Papke advises waiting for the cast to get a few performances under their belts. Or, since Papke's Classical Actors Ensemble performs a lot of Shakespeare, under their scabbards.

"Opening night [on a Friday], everything should be hunky-dory but there can be a heightened feeling like, 'Gosh, I wish we had one more rehearsal,' when you don't have built-in previews," Papke said.

Later, he said, actors can give a better performance without that sense of "Tonight's the night." It varies from production to production, he added, saying he has been in plays where shows as early as the final dress rehearsal were fantastic.

Eric Sharp — who is directing "The Chinese Lady" that opens Sept. 7 at Open Eye Theatre — and Sara Marsh — who stars in Dark & Stormy Productions' "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," now at Gremlin Theatre — agree that timing depends on what you're looking for.

Because the show is evolving and is different every night, Sharp declines to pick a best time other than "once the audience has arrived." Marsh loves the energy actors get from audiences the first time they hear their reactions, but adds that "seeing a show later in the run will offer a more seasoned performance. I personally find the discoveries and excitement of opening more compelling, but there are reasons to go at any point in the run. Come early and come often!"

In fact, it might be fascinating to see a show a couple of times and compare.

Full Circle Theater co-founder Rick Shiomi, who once met an "A Chorus Line" actor who had been with it for more than a decade, said 11 years is pushing it. He thinks a couple of weeks into a run is best.

While she loves the excitement of opening night, actor Sun Mee Chomet agrees that the cast really clicks later on. Possibly much later.

"One of my mentors, Laurie Carlos, was in the original 'For Colored Girls' on [and off] Broadway," said Chomet, who will be in "Dinner for One" at Jungle Theater this December. "When I was doing my one-woman show, she asked, 'Are you going to keep doing it?' I said, 'I'm tired of it, I think I've found everything I can in it.' She laughed in my face and said, 'Girl, you haven't found a show until you do your 3,000th performance.'"