The document discusses the evolution of the director role from ancient Greece to modern times. It outlines some of the key responsibilities of directors, such as play analysis, developing a concept, collaborating with designers, casting actors, and rehearsing. It profiles several influential directors like Stanislavsky, Grotowski, Bogart, and Wilson. The director works closely with the stage manager, dramaturg, producers, and board of directors on a production.

1. But What I Really Want to Do is
DIRECT!

2. The Director
 Evolution of the director
 The function of the director has always been
present in one way or another, even though we
haven’t always called them that
 Greece – the Choregus was in charge of rehearsing the
actors (and paying the bills!)
 Medieval/Renaissance/Restoration – the actor-
manager was a leading member of the company who
handled the business end and some of the staging in
addition to acting

3. The Director
 Evolution of the director
 Term “director” became common at the end of
the 19th century
▪ Technology was developing to a place that we needed
someone to guide the production to keep everyone from
getting out of hand
 The director must draw disparate elements
together to create a unified whole
 It’s the director’s job to make sure everything fits on
the same “planet”

4. GEORG II –
Duke of Saxe-Meiningen
Generally known as the “First Director,”
the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen was a
wealthy German who loved theatre
enough to finance his own company –
The Meininger Ensemble – which he ran
with his wife and a friend of theirs.
This company was particularly famous
for using historically accurate costumes
(this was not common at the time –
instead, mostly actors would just wear
their own fancy clothes whether they fit
the play or not) as well as his extremely
complex crowd scenes.

5. Konstantin Stanislavsky
Konstantin Stanislavsky (see… I
told you we’d be talking about
him again) co-founded the
world-famous Moscow Art
Theatre with his friend Vladimir
Nemirovich-Danchenko. There,
they focused on developing
productions with psychological
and visual realism. Think about
Russian books from that period –
they were so thick because they
were so full of detail. They
wanted to recreate that on the
stage. (And yes, that’s me taking
a long-arm picture with good ol’
Stanislavsky this past summer)

6. Jerzy Grotowski
Jerzy Grotowski was an experimental Polish
director who worked with his actors on a
communal farm (The Polish Laboratory
Theatre) where they did extremely physical
training so that they were able to completely
control their bodies. They liked to experiment
with aesthetic distance, making the audience
more a part of the performance than they
were used to. His productions use costumes
and sets that seem primitive and dirty rather
than elaborate, realistic elements. His book,
Towards a Poor Theatre, outlined his
philosophy on theatre. One of his most
famous pieces is Akropolis. It is a group of
If you’re interested, click here to
prisoners in a concentration camp enacting a
check out a little bit of Akropolis.
series of stories while also building the oven
It’s in Polish… and it’s probably
into which they will eventually disappear
completely different from
forever. anything you’ve seen before.

7. Anne Bogart
Anne Bogart is still alive and
working today. She founded a
company in Upstate New York
called The SITI Company which
focuses on very physical training
methods. In particular she
developed a system called
VIEWPOINTS that teaches actors
to be very aware of themselves
and their fellow actors as they
move through the stage space.
Her productions tend to be
unrealistic and expressive with a
focus on imagination and
collaboration.

8. Robert Wilson
Robert Wilson is a famous
experimental director who has
worked on everything from traditional
plays to seven day long performances
and beyond. He was a stutterer as a
child and as an adult he has worked
extensively with children with speech
and mental disabilities, which has
shaped the non-linear worlds he
creates on stage. He also studied as
an architect, so he designs his own
sets in addition to directing. Last
month he launched the world tour of
a remounting of his famous 4 ½ hour
Einstein on the Beach in Ann Arbor…
and I got to see it! I believe one of
your classmates also got to attend!

9. What a Director Does
• Play Analysis In the following slides I’ll go into
more detail on each of these.
• Director’s Concept This is a fairly basic list, so it is
by no means complete. Every
• Collaborate with Designers director – like every playwright
and every artists – has his or her
• Cast the Actors own approach and style.
Although the hardest part of
• Block the Show the job for almost everyone is
to let the play go once it has
• Rehearse the Actors opened. Directors spend weeks
or sometimes months
• Let it go! rehearsing with the cast, but
then they have to step away
once it’s ready for an audience.
It’s hard to say goodbye!

10. Play Analysis
These are just a few of the questions
• Visit to a Small Planet a director might ask as they
approach a play. But there are as
• Aristotle’s Six Elementsmany approaches as there are
directors and plays – almost infinite
• Plot Structure possibilities! Look at the next two
slides for images from some very
• Style different productions. Try to think
about what decisions the directors
• Genre might have made that led them in
such different directions based on
• All to lead you to… the same scripts.
THE DIRECTOR’S CONCEPT

11. A Midsummer Night’s Dream

12. Alice in Wonderland

13. The Rehearsal Process
• Casting – choosing the actors
• Rehearsal – practicing lines, movements and characters
• Tech Rehearsal – the rehearsals when sound, lighting and
set are added
• Dress Rehearsal – the rehearsals when costumes, makeup
and wigs are added
• Final Dress – the final rehearsal before there’s an audience
• Previews – performances before the official opening night,
sometimes with an invited audience of friends/critics,
sometimes tickets are sold
• Opening Night! – the first night that is officially open for the
public to purchase tickets

14. Rehearsing the Actors
• Table Work – the first few rehearsals when the actors and director
read the play around the table asking and answering questions
• Improvisation – some directors like to work with the actors outside
of the script, letting them imagine events with their own words and
ideas
• Learning lines – gotta get memorized!
• Blocking – setting the movements of the actors from place to place
on the stage
• Stage Business – the smaller actions performed by actors like
smoking a cigarette or playing with their hair
• Stage Pictures – the images that are created by the blocking and
stage business
• Notes – directors are always giving notes to the actors, trying to
help them improve and find their characters
• Repetition! – we do things over and over and over and over – that’s
the only way to get it right!

15. Types of Directors
• Playwright-centered
– Faithfully interpret the world of the play as the
playwright intended
• Auteur
– Interpret the world of the play as they see fit to
communicate their own unique vision
– Sometimes they alter the texts dramatically
– They could combine texts, use other forms of
media, rearrange scenes, etc.

16. Who the Director Works With
• Stage Manager
– Coordinates all the rehearsals
– Keeps a record of all the blocking during
rehearsals
– Runs the technical rehearsals
– Takes charge of the show once it is open
– Calls the cues during the performances
“Cue” is one of those theatre words that has a lot of meanings. A “cue” can be a line
of dialogue or an action from an actor that signals something is supposed to happen.
A cue can also be a light change or a sound effect. In this case, we’re talking about the
latter: The Stage Manager has her script with all the light and sound cues marked in it,
and it is up to her to call when they are to happen.

17. Who the Director Works With
• Dramaturg
– Assist in the selection of plays
– Work with playwrights to develop new
scripts
– Research any contextual or historical
information to assist with the director’s concept
– Serve as the in-house critic – “ideal audience
member”
– Prepare educational and outreach materials
– Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: “first dramaturg”

18. Producers
• “The producer is concerned with the business of
show business” – Oscar Brockett (the granddaddy
of Theatre History… he just passed away last
year)
• Budgeting
• Hiring
• Marketing
• Internal Operations
• May not be an artist
• May also be the Executive Director of the theatre
• Could be a corporate producer (Think Disney)

19. Board of Directors
• Like a producer for non-profit theatre
• Usually unpaid group of volunteers who raise
money and provide support for the theatre
• Work with the theatre’s Artistic and/or
Executive Director(s)