The Director at Work

Becoming a director is not so much a matter of learning a formula or particular techniques but rather of coming to understand the principles and strategies which motivate and guide a director’s actions in any specific instance. What is offered here, therefore, is designed to help you learn to think like a director so that you can develop your techniques to suit the specific situation you will encounter in your work. This book is addresses to those interested in learning to direct the live theatre, whether it be commercial or experimental, professional or amateur. It focuses on that most common type of production in which a preexistent text is being “interpreted” through the efforts of a production team under the director’s guidance, though much of what is discusses here will also apply to other directing situations, such as the development of new material through ensemble creation. Directing is essentially the guidance of a process, so I have divided the study into three the first discusses the nature of the director’s job and the qualities of mind which it requires; the second covers the director’s preparation prior to the beginning of rehearsals; the third traces the evolution of a production through the rehearsal process.