The Director Sector

I already addressed the merest of directing in my post on Three Words Directors Need To Know, but in this particular post, I’m going to address actual classroom ideas. You see, when I took my first Directing class, it was rather… simple. Here’s basically the way the class went down.

1. Intro to class
2. Discuss different directors (Homework: research different directors)
3. Each student presents a 5 minute oral report on their director (e.g. Elia Kazan) and that director’s style
4. Class is split in half — “Team A” directs first, “Team B” stage manages.
5. From among stage managers, “designers” selected.
6. “Team A” perform plays.
7. “Team B” people become directors, “Team A” people become SM’s.
8. Repeat.

As you can see, there is very little instruction on what directors actually do and how they go about their jobs. In fact, of the 36 possible class meetings, we only met, maybe, eight times. Lots of learning going on there, I promise you.

Now, I am far from an expert, but think I can come up with a better solution. This new plan requires a class limit of 8 people. Any more than that, and you’ve got too many people involved. Limit it to eight people (juniors and seniors). If you have more than that, create another section with another professor. Now, the plan:

Week one: Introduction to Directing, discuss chain of command in theatre, history of directing, roles, etc
Week two: Select plays*, write proposals that answer the following questions: Why did you choose this piece? What technical problems do you foresee? How will you solve them? How large is the cast? Male/Female roles? etc.
Week three: Present proposals to class, discuss proposals. Are there any obvious problems? Does the class, in general, think these particular proposals are good?**
Week four: Discuss concepts, show concepts from in-house designers as examples, assign concepts assignment
Week five: Present concepts to class, discuss concepts. Instructor should grade concepts on feasibility, following instructions, etc. Split class into pairs, each pair in charge of one aspect of designing
Week six: Hold auditions for plays, begin rehearsing
Week seven: Production meetings - class discusses problems, solutions, and needs for productions
Week eight: Discuss various directors and their styles, including Elia Kazan, Stanislavsky, etc, assign report on directors and styles
Week nine: Present reports to class, continue production meetings, rehearsals, etc.
Week ten: Tech week, make sure productions are ready to go
Week eleven: Productions — Post-mortem report assigned
Week twelve: Post-mortem report (final exam) due

*Limit cast to 4 or fewer — can be adjusted depending on actor pool. Smaller schools need smaller casts, since fewer actors are available. If possible, could work in concert with acting classes.
**Note: This is not for a grade, but for constructive criticism purposes).

Okay, so as you can see, there are some major differences. I’ve included a few aspects of the original class, since I agree those aspects are necessary, but I do think that if you’re going to have a class called “Directing” then there should be some lessons that deal with exactly what it is that directors do (e.g. production meetings, concepts, rehearsals, etc). Theatre history with regards to directing and studying other director styles is definitely needed, but that didn’t help me at all when I directed my first productions.

So there you have it. If I were to teach Directing 101, that would be my basic course outline.

Any suggestions? Comments? Jokes?