The Art and Practice of Directing for Theatre

Paul B. Crook

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317364542
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medien & darstellende Kunst
• Subtopic: Theaterregie und& Theaterproduktion

The formation and communication of vision is one of the primary responsibilities of a director, before ever getting to the nuts and bolts of the process. The Art and Practice of Directing for Theatre helps the young director learn how to discover, harness, and meld the two. Providing both a practical and theoretical foundation for directors, this book explores how to craft an artistic vision for a production, and sparks inspiration in directors to put their learning into practice.

This book includes:

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• Guidance through day-to-day aspects of directing, including a director's skillset and tools, script analysis, and rehearsal structure.

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• Advice on collaborating with production teams and actors, building communication skills and tools, and integrating digital media into these practices.

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• Discussion questions and practical worksheets covering script analysis, blocking, and planning rehearsals, with downloadable versions on a companion website.

Part I
What is a Director?

Chapter 1
Purpose of a Director

Why am I here? No, I’m not talking about the existential mating call version of this question; I’m talking about the question that many directors find themselves faced with upon agreeing to direct a play. For several hundred years, plays were performed (very successfully, I might add) without our help. What changed in the mid-nineteenth century to cause the modern director to be born? Why did dear ol’ Georg II, the Duke of Saxe Meiningen feel the need to assert himself? The answer to this one is actually simple and can be expressed in one word: cohesiveness; or vision; or, maybe, unity. OK, that’s obviously more than one word, but you get the point.

But perhaps that’s jumping ahead. In discussing the beginning of her career in the book A Director Prepares, Anne Bogart talks about her need to discover “on whose shoulders she stands.”¹ Bogart is specifically referring to the importance of examining her “Americanness” as a director, but it is also important to understand how the actual position of director evolved.

From the Greeks forward, there was typically an individual who led a production in some way. Playwrights were most often called upon in the early periods, though some Greek and Roman chorus members also served in that role. Liturgical dramas taking place in European churches in the Middle Ages often had the priest or choirmaster as the individual “in charge.” As the popularity of theatre rose again during the Renaissance, we know that Shakespeare, Molière, and a variety of actor-managers assumed the task of leading individual productions. Though few physical records exist, it can even be safely assumed that the patrons of companies sometimes exerted a level of artistic control and vision over performances. We do, of course, have anecdotal evidence from the Melancholy Dane himself: “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.”² From the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, any number of people stepped to the fore in “directing” productions, including actors, playwrights, and theatre owners.

The modern concept of director, as an individual whose sole responsibility is to develop and implement a unifying vision for a play, is traditionally traced to 1874 and Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. As both the patron and the head of the Meiningen Players, the duke was faced with a lack of funds that forced him to use a team devoid of the star power found in most nineteenth-century acting companies. Faced with this, he chose to focus on finding a cohesion of production that had not previously been seen. In his book The History of the Theatre, Oscar Brockett discusses the Meiningen Players’ attention to detail in all areas of a production. Brockett notes that Saxe-Meiningen was not only patron and director, but also served as designer for all the physical elements of his productions. This auteur-like control allowed for a new style of theatrical production, Brockett tells us: “The impact of the Meiningen Players came from the complete illusion attained in every aspect of the production … [the company] stands at the beginning of the new movement toward unified production.”³

So, you see, plays had historically been led by a variety of people: theatre managers, actors, designers, and playwrights all took the helm in various productions, depending on the time and place. If we could jump in the wayback machine, I suspect we would find each of those productions to be glorious displays of disparate parts. What was needed was a person to draw those disparate parts together into a unified whole—hence the birth of the director. So let’s bring it back to the present …

Let’s say you’re directing a production of King Lear. You go into your first design meeting and your scenic designer presents you with this glorious PowerPoint production of her vision for the show. She envisions Lear’s castle as a beautiful Mayan temple. The castles of his daughters are shown as intricately and ingeniously recreated Mayan dwellings. For the “blasted heath” at the end of the play she has pulled photos and made sketches for a huge cliff from which a waterfall drops into a spectacular lake. Pretty great stuff, right? Really fuels the imagination for a creative, fun version of the show.

Now at that same design meeting, after the scenic designer has presented her ideas, the costume designer (who has grown quieter and quieter during the first presentation) begins his pitch. He has some absolutely amazing sketches and renderings for his costumes. Using plastics and polymers, he has created a stunning, futuristic parade of clothing. He has Lear in a cool space-suit with great lines and a fabulous helmet-crown. Goneril and Regan are in dresses made out of something that looks a little like bubble-wrap, but less fragile. Edgar and Edmund are in diametrically opposed military uniforms of sleek black and white. Finally, the Fool is in a costume that gives him an extra head and three extra limbs.

Now this is just as interesting as the scenic designer’s proposal. The problem (aside from the obvious one), though, is that your vision for the show was to place it on Wall Street with Lear as the founding CEO of a technological design firm. So when the costume designer finishes his presentation, you look at both of them and say … what?

That is why you are there. You possess the ability to take those varying visions and mold them together. You are the ringleader of this 24-ring circus that’s called a play. Ultimately, you must remember that the play has to be your vision. You have to figure out a way to bring together all of the differing viewpoints of what the play should be. It is by no means a simple task and there are certainly many ways to accomplish it, but the successful directors are the ones who find a way to do it. They don’t succeed by bludgeoning everyone into doing it their way … they find a way to show the team how the goal can be accomplished with everyone participating.

Being a director is a lot like being a football coach. A head coach has numerous assistant coaches, each with their own specialty. Each of those coaches is responsible for making sure that a specific section—whether it’s the linebackers, the receivers, the quarterbacks, or any other positions—is prepared for each game. The head coach doesn’t have to specialize in all of those areas, but must have a working knowledge of each area and an overall gameplan, as well as knowing how each person fits into it. Ideally, the offensive, defensive, and special teams coaches are skilled enough that their units are prepared to execute that plan on game day. It might be that, on the sidelines during a crucial point in the game, the running backs coach sidles up to the head coach and says: “Hey, why don’t we run slot right, 45 Z-in? I know it will work.” The head coach has to make the final decision as to whether that play fits into the overall plan. If it does, the head coach then integrates it into the game but if it doesn’t, he or she thanks the assistant coach for the suggestion and then discards it.

The same holds true for you, as a director. You have designers, a technical director, stage management, promotions, etc. Each person wants to produce the best show possible and they all have terrific ideas about how to achieve that goal. You have to listen to their ideas, evaluate how they fit into the overall concept of the show, and decide whether or not to use them. Just remember (and this is jumping ahead to something that will be discussed in a later chapter) that whatever decision you make must be sure to serve the production well. From the first class in theatre you ever took, you have most likely heard that theatre is the most collaborative of all of the arts, and this is true. Within this world of collaboration, though, the director’s job is quite possibly the most collaborative of them all, since you have to work with everyone in the company to bring the completed vision to the stage for the audience.

So, how do you do all of this? How do you wrangle the circus, coordinate the coaches, assemble all the moving parts? We’ll get into specifics throughout the book, but for now let’s examine three characteristics of successful directors: passion, vision, and practicality.

Passion

When I talk with classes, or am asked to speak at conferences, or just in conversation with people, I often am asked why I do what I do. My initial answer is always the same, and is only half-joking: I have no other marketable skills! I can’t make things; I can’t repair things; I’m a horrible salesman; and math makes my head hurt. However, I follow up that somewhat flippant reply with the more pertinent answer, which is this: I have stories to tell. There are hundreds and hundreds of stories out there that I want to share and tell, and directing is my medium to do that. We, directors, are storytellers at heart. And what is so exciting about theatre is that when we tell Nora Helmer’s story, or Willy Loman’s story, we are really telling our story. Every successful director I have ever met or read about has been passionate about telling stories. Directors know that plays are vital expressions of a certain aspect or aspects of society, and through performance we can illuminate those for an audience. The best directors choose plays that they are passionate about and whose stories they feel a driving urge to share with an audience.

Now, obviously, directors aren’t going to feel the same level of passion about every play they direct; there are some plays that you simply love more than others. And that’s OK. But when faced with a play that isn’t as exciting to you as another might be, remember your passion for storytelling. Remember your passion for performances. Remember your passion for theatre. Because the truth is, there will be times you are directing a show that you don’t really like at all. Just like every other profession, sometimes we take jobs because we need to have a job. There are bills to pay, food to buy, and families to clothe. This is, perhaps, when your passion is most valuable to you. It’s easy to get up and go to work when you jump out of bed and are excited about the prospects of the day—anyone can do that. It gets much more difficult when you’re faced with going in to a rehearsal for a play that you don’t like or haven’t yet been able to get excited about. When that happens, remember your passion: find something that excites you about the production. Perhaps it’s a particular blocking challenge the play holds, due to the size or shape of the set. Perhaps there’s an actor in the show you have always admired but never had the opportunity to work with before. Or perhaps you will get the opportunity to work with a larger budget than you’ve had on previous shows. Whatever the reason, you have to find a hook—something on which you can hang your passion and which will allow you to dive into the play with excitement each day. Because if you aren’t able to find that hook, the resulting production will, unfortunately, reflect your lack of passion.

Vision

How do you read a play? Obviously, I’m not asking the question physiologically; I’m asking what you focus on when you read a script. Do you zero in on a particular character? Plot point? Theme? Design? Or do you read it just for entertainment purposes? All of those are certainly valid approaches to reading, but for a director, none of them are complete. Remember that the director is ultimately responsible for providing the vision for the entire production, and you should begin developing that vision at the first reading. Ideally, when you read a script as a director, you should “see” the play unfold in your head in some fashion. While you may have come to directing via some other discipline (acting, design, stage management, etc.), if you only focus on that particular area, then you will miss out on a great deal. If you find yourself focusing on one area while reading a script, then make a conscious effort the next time through to look at the whole picture. We’ll be discussing the specifics of approaching a script in a later chapter, but for now a question to bear in mind while reading a script is: What do you want the audience to take away from the performance? Remember that it is for the audience that the story is being told, and that each decision you make will impact what the audience gets out of the experience. By keeping this question in your head while reading a play, you will begin to formulate your vision for the overall production.

Sometimes it’s hard to figure out where to start in formulating your vision for a show. One way to assist in that process is to consider a show for which you already have a vision. Every director I have ever met has a “Dream Show” in mind. This is a show that, given free rein over decision-making, and an unlimited budget, the director knows exactly how he or she would approach it. Even if you are completely inexperienced, and have taken this class never having considered directing before, you may find that you already have such a show in mind. Remember, the Dream Show isn’t logical—you’re never going to be given an unlimited budget—but logic doesn’t have to matter. You know the show you want to do, and you know the way you want to do it. Consider what your Dream Show is (or what it might be). Examine the vision you have of the show in your head (concept, design choices, casting, staging, etc.). Take note of how much you know about the show already, before you’ve even started researching it, and then begin to look for those elements in your new script. By considering the various parts of your vision for your Dream Show, you...