Chapter 13 – Directing and Producing
Terminology
ACTORS EQUITY
ASSOCIATION
AUDITIONS
BLOCKING
CALL-BACKS
CASTING DIRECTORS
CHOREOGRAPHER
COLD READINGS
DIRECTOR
DRESS REHEARSALS
GROUND PLAN
JULIE TAYMOR
MUSICAL DIRECTOR
OPEN CALL
PRODUCER
PRODUCTION CONCEPT
RUN-THROUGH
REHEARSALS
STAGE IMAGES
STAGE MANAGER
TECHNICAL REHEARSALS
VISUAL COMPOSITION
Outline
I. The functions of playwright, producer and director entwine on a practical level.
A. The way they come together varies from one situation to another
II. The Producer
A. Has the financial and managerial tasks of making productions available to the public
1. May influence artistic decisions through financial considerations
B. The producer’s responsibilities are most clearly defined in the Broadway theatre
1. The group or organization raises the necessary capital
2. Producers seek financial backing from investors
a. Partnerships or corporations are formed to limit financial liability
C. Producers negotiate contracts
1. They may deal with as many as 11 different unions
2. Producers also rent space for auditions and rehearsals, lease the theatre, arrange for publicity and
facilitate ticket sales
3. Administer payroll, keep financial records, report to investors
D. The producer’s responsibilities are less clearly defined in other situations
1. Professional resident companies (not-for-profit)
a. The artistic director is concerned with the artistic effectiveness and quality
b. The managing director / producing director is concerned with financing and marketing
c. The board of directors may assist in raising funds and acquiring grants and donations
E. In community theatres the organization is the producer
1. Volunteers carry out many of the duties
2. The organization typically has officers and a board of directors
F. In educational theatre the producer’s functions may be divided among several persons
1. The school (who usually owns the space)
2. The department chair or director of theatre
3. The business manager (if one exists)
4. The director of each play
G. The tasks remain the same, though who performs them may vary
H. The producer is also often involved in choosing the scripts to be produced
I.
Many permanent organizations select a season of plays, taking into consideration:
1. Offering plays from a variety of periods and forms
2. The production requirements of each play
3. The total cost in relation to the organization’s budget and projected income
4. The tastes of local audiences and probably box-office appeal
J. During the play selection process, advice may be sought from a number of sources
K. Professional organizations may deal directly with living authors or their agents in negotiating
arrangements to produce plays
1. Sometimes rights are handled through play agencies
2. Older plays may not require payment if their copyrights have expired
a. Recent translations or adaptations of older plays may be protected by copyright
III. The Director
A. The director is concerned with the artistic aspects of production:
1. Interprets the script and forms a production concept or approach
2. Casts and rehearses the performers
3. Works with the designers
4. Integrates all of the elements into a finished production
IV. Analyzing and Studying the Script
A. The starting point for most productions is a script. Many questions face the director:
1. What is the basic story?
2. If the play is foreign, what translation is best suited to the production?
3. How might the play’s events and their arrangement affect a live audience?
4. Should portions of the script be cut?
5. Should certain scenes be transposed?
6. What is the significance of the play’s time and setting?
7. Should these be altered?
B. A full understanding of a play usually requires some form of analysis. Directors may take note of:
1. The play’s structural pattern
2. The play’s units or beats
3. Their own emotional reactions or images certain moments inspire
4. The play’s through-line or spine
a. Overall thrust
b. Themes
c. Point of view
d. Implications
5. Characters and their individual functions in the play
6. Characters and the challenges and opportunities they pose for the actors
7. Scenic, lighting, sound, and costume demands
C. Directors typically consult sources beyond the script
1. The cultural environment depicted in the play
2. The context from which the script emerged
3. Critiques and reviews of prior productions
D. Directors may work directly with a playwright on a new script
BOX – Directors on Directing

Some thoughts of several prominent European directors on the director’s role in creating
theatre:

Adrian Noble: “I tend to give the actors quite a strong conceptual line on a play… I
feel people respond better to a firm framework…Once they’ve grasped the idea they have
tremendous freedom within it.”

Peter Stein: “A director’s approach should always depend on what is needed for the
play. I find the best stage dynamic comes if I am accepted as a brother who has very good
eyes.”

Ariane Mnouchkine: “I’m like a midwife. …The midwife doesn’t create the woman, and
she’s not the husband. But still if she is not there, the baby is in great danger and might not
come out.”

Giorgio Strehler: “The undeviating search for the truth of the text, the painstaking
search for the dramatic work of art, these are the essential tasks of the director…The
problem is the excessive emphasis given to the director’s role.”
E. The director then decides upon an interpretation that accounts for the significance of the play’s dramatic
action and defines the focus of the production
1. This may be distilled into a production concept
2. A production concept serves as an organizational tool for the production team
V. Approaches to Directing
A. Several approaches to directing have become common
1. Literal, or the page-to-stage approach
a. Produced as close to the playwright’s intentions as possible
2. Translation approach
a. Produced to capture the spirit of the script
B. The translation approach is now the most common
1. Directors search for something to define the focus or production concept
a. Metaphor
i. Nikolai Okhlopkov – Hamlet – the world is a prison
b. Analogy
i. Orson Welles – Macbeth – Set in Haiti (voodoo treated as analogous to witchcraft)
c. Central Motif
i. Peter Brook – A Midsummer Night’s Dream – the potentials and dangers of love
d. Conventions from another form
i. Ariane Mnouchkine – Asian theatre conventions applied to Shakespearean plays
C. The translation approach assumes that the audience may more fully grasp the script’s significance
through choices that reveal fundamental patterns of meaning possibly hidden beneath the script’s surface
detail
D. A third approach to directing places less emphasis on the script
1. The auteur approach – treats the script as raw material to be reshaped for the director’s own
purposes
a. The director is considered the principal creative force – virtually eliminates the playwright
E. Jerzy Grotowski
1. Reshaped scripts with the intention of provoking audiences into self-examination and self-recognition
F. Robert Wilson
1. Develops performances so unique that their written scripts convey such little information they are
inadequate for others to use
2. Lays out each piece as a storyboard and infuses the work with his understanding of spatial
relationships, movement and a particular sensitivity to time
G. Regardless of approach, directors have to work with others to transform their vision into reality
1. What the director’s vision ultimately achieves may be different from his or her original intention
VI. The Director and the Designers
A. Some directors also serve as their own designer, but that is unusual
1. The director usually meets as early as possible with the designers
B. Designers must be allowed time to conceive their designs
C. Directors typically are concerned with several questions when reviewing preliminary designs:
1. Do the designs adequately project the production concept?
2. Do they fit the play’s action, mood, theme, and style?
3. How do the designs for each aspect complement and support each other?
4. Will scenic and costume pieces functionally serve the uses the director has planned for the
production’s staging?
5. If costume or scenery changes must occur during performance, will the proposed designs permit
these changes without undue delays?
6. Can the designs be achieved within the production’s budget, personnel and time constraints?
D. After the designs are approved, each artist works more or less independently
VII.
Auditions and Casting
A. Audition procedures and methods vary
1. Open call
a. Usually even “open” calls restrict access in some way
B. Many professional producing organizations depend on casting directors to provide the director with
prescreened candidates
C. Some directors ask performers to present previously prepared audition material
1. Two short, contrasting monologues unrelated to the play being cast
2. Sometimes actors are able to study the script before they audition
3. Sometimes actors are asked to read from unfamiliar material
a. “Cold readings”
D. Many factors determine final casting
1. After weighing all the factors, the director chooses the performers who seem most capable of
embodying the qualities he or she is seeking
VIII.
Working with the Actors
A. The director works to mesh the actors with their roles and the dramatic action
a. Supervises without dictating
b. Guides the actors’ responses with tact and understanding
B. Throughout the rehearsal process the director assesses the actors’ work and makes suggestions for
improvements
IX. The Director’s Means
A. Include the entire resources of the theatre
1. The script
2. The actors
3. The stage space
4. Scenery, properties, costumes, makeup, lighting and sound
X. Stage Images
A. Each moment creates an image that sends a message to the audience
1. Stage images convey the situation, emotional content and character relationships
2. Directors use various devices of visual composition to create emphasis and subordination
B. One of the most important controls over emphasis and subordination is the position of the performers on
stage
1. Some of the means of controlling emphasis are:
a. Height
b. Placement of actors within the stage space
c. Spatial relationships
d. Contrast
e. Visual focus
f. Costume
g. Lighting
h. Scenery
C. When one moves from the proscenium to the thrust or arena stage, the means to create visual emphasis
are more limited
1. Not all of the audience will see the same thing from the same position
D. The way devices for achieving emphasis are used depends greatly upon the stage setting, which can
create compositional patterns
1. The type of play also affects composition
E. There are many objections to the deliberate use of stage images:
1. Some believe that stage images are the legacy of a time when the “picture-frame” stage was the only
type in use and that its conventions have become invalidated
2. Some believe that concern for visual composition leads to a self-conscious or unnatural positioning of
performers on stage
3. Flexible stages reject the traditional view that each moment should have a major focal point
F. Many objections concern the possibility that these compositions will draw attention to themselves and
distract attention from the play’s action
1. Although there may be controversy, the importance of stage images is undeniable
XI. Movement, Gesture and Business
A. The dominant impression of a performance is one of movement
B. Movement serves many functions:
1. Gives emphasis
2. Characterizes
3. Clarifies situation
4. Builds scenes to a climax, provides contrast and establishes tempo
5. Can be indicative of dramatic type or style
C. Movement can be divided into 3 main types:
1. From place to place – the broadest type
2. Gesture
3. Business
4. Most directors take their cues for movement from the script
a. Character relationships and emotional connotations are among the most common motivators of
movement
D. Gesture, facial expression and bodily attitude are of special importance for achieving subtlety and clarity.
Together these create “body language”
1. Gesture
a. Can provide a subtle means of gaining emphasis
b. Can convey basic psychological traits
2. Bodily attitude and facial expression
a. Convey emotional attitudes or immediate reactions
E. Stage business involves physical activities frequently prescribed by the script
1. Must be carefully timed and coordinated with dialogue
F. In recent years, several nontraditional uses of movement, gesture and business have become common
1. Some directors may use nonrealistic movement to stylize a production or to physicalize abstract ideas
XII.
Voice and Speech
A. The director’s means also include the voice and speech of the performers
1. In using voice and speech the director has 4 main concerns:
a. The dialogue should be audible and comprehensible to the entire audience
b. The performers’ vocal qualities should be appropriate to their characters
c. The inflectional pattern and volume of the performers should be not only appropriate to their
characters, but also to specific situations and the meanings of their lines
d. The tempo and rhythm of the performers’ dialogue should vary appropriately in accordance with
the changing dynamics of the action
B. The director’s means are varied and they are applied simultaneously in the theatre, first one and then
another being given primacy
XIII.
Rehearsing the Play
A. Rehearsals can seldom be held under conditions approximating those of performance
1. The director and performers must rely heavily on imagination
B. The typical rehearsal space is a large room
1. A ground plan of the set is outlined with tape or paint on the floor
2. Rehearsal furniture and improvised doors and levels are provided
3. Rehearsal properties and garments are often provided
C. In order to plan rehearsals effectively, the director needs to know how much time is available
1. The director ascertains the approximate number of hours available and plans a schedule to utilize the
time to maximum advantage
2. The director divides the schedule into progressive phases
D. Before beginning rehearsals of the play, some directors devote time to group activities
E. The first phase of rehearsal is usually devoted to reading and discussing the script
1. Performers gain a basic understanding of their roles
2. The director clarifies the main objectives
F. The next phase is usually devoted to blocking
1. Concerned with large patterns of movement
G. When the blocking for one segment is clear, the director moves on to the next
1. Initial blocking may be tentative
2. Blocking may evolve out of character relationships and the performers’ sense of their roles
H. The next phase of rehearsal is typically devoted to deepening the performers’ understanding of their lines
and blocking
1. It is difficult for performers to achieve subtle characterization or to build scenes properly if they must
continually consult their scripts
2. It is important that the performers understand (in detail) who their characters are, what they are doing,
why they are doing it, and how they relate to one another
I. With musicals, the director’s task becomes especially complex during this and later stages of rehearsals
1. Must integrate songs and dances as well as devise transitions
J. The next phase of rehearsal usually is dedicated to ensemble playing and shaping the action for an
overall effect
1. Most directors include at least one uninterrupted “run-through” of the entire play during this part of the
rehearsal process
K. The final phase of rehearsals integrates all of the elements of production
1. Technical rehearsals
2. Dress rehearsals
3. Preview performances
4. Many adjustments are typically made during these final rehearsals
L. When the play opens, the director’s job is considered to be complete
XIV.
The Director’s Assistants
A. The director usually has several assistants who fulfill a variety of functions
1. One assistant takes notes during rehearsals – rehearsal secretary
2. One assistant acts like a secondary director – assistant director
B. Perhaps the most indispensable is the stage manager
1. The stage manager is responsible for:
a. Running the show at each performance
b. Compiling the promptbook
c. May organize and run auditions
d. May rehearse the performers
e. The director’s surrogate during performances