The Director Sector

Yesterday, I announced the beginning of Project: Introspection, a series of blogs in which I will describe skills, qualities and lessons I’ve learned in my theatrical endeavors.  One of the skills that I’ve developed largely thanks to my actor training is oral communication skills.  Acting onstage taught me how to be comfortable speaking in front of people, from small groups to large audiences that fill a 5,000 seat house.  Okay, I’ve never actually spoken in front of five thousand people, but I probably could, no problem.  In addition, working with crews and other actors requires clear, concise and well-organized communication skills that allow for maximum expression of knowledge with minimal interference and distraction.  In other words, it means fewer screwups and mistakes.

One of my former directors was brilliantly creative — in fact, one of the most brilliant creative minds I know — but she couldn’t communicate clearly and concisely to save her life.  She would speak in these vague terms and struggle with communicating even the most basic ideas.

I took an acting class with her.  In fact, I’ve mentioned her on this blog before (you know, McPsycho).  She would stand up and give us an assignment in vague terms.  ”Okay class,” she would say.  ”You’re going to come back on Monday, and you’re going to wait…” and then walk out the door.  She didn’t say what we were waiting for, nor did she clarify on the comment at all.  On Monday, class began, and she asked me to begin.  I had no idea what she was talking about, of course, and she marked me down for a zero for the day’s assignment.  The next student must’ve decided he didn’t want a zero, so he stood up in front of the class and waited for her to tell him what to do.

“Brilliant!” she cried.

The guy who was waiting for her to tell him what to do was clearly confused, but he just kept doing what he was doing and finally she said “That’s great, thank you” and he sat down.  And slowly it dawned on the class what she was asking us to do.

She wanted us to ACT like we were waiting, without saying “I’m waiting” in clear terms.

She could’ve said that, but instead, she gave a vague something and expected us to understand.

Two years later, I got cast in a show that she was directing.  It was a southern drama, very heavy racist tones.  My character was deliciously evil.  I was horrified at some of the things I had to say, but being able to step into the character was a blast, even if the show was incredibly depressing.

About halfway through the rehearsal process, making major changes every night (not simple cues or instructions, but entirely reconstructing scenes each night, well past when things should have been locked in), she finally gave us her final instruction:  ”Think ‘passionate timebomb’.”

We looked at each other and then back at her.

“What’s that mean?” I said.

“You know,” she answered.  ”Passionate… timebomb.  You’re like timebombs.. but passionate.”

It took us several days of rehearsal before we finally understood what she meant, but any time we asked for clarification, she’d repeat those two words to us.

“Passionate timebomb!”

Completely useless.

Later, after I realized what she meant, I understood that she could have worded it in much clearer terms that would’ve achieved an equal, if not better, effect.  Instead of understanding what she wanted and achieving the desired outcome immediately, we spent several days trying different things until something clicked and she said “Perfect!” and we locked it in.  Instead of clarity and efficiency, we spent time frustrated and confused.

Over my years in theatre, I’ve been trying to improve my oral communications skills.  I’ve got some speech impediment problems that I’m working through (namely, I slur or run words together sometimes), but in terms of speaking in front of a large audience, I’m a thousand times better than I was just five years ago.  I work best off a script, but I can certainly deal in an improvisation scenario.

I’ve had to utilize my oral communications skills outside of a theatre many times, mostly during my years of teaching public schools.  I had to stand up in front of anywhere from 10 to 35 students at a time and teach them.  That means speaking clearly and concisely, in no uncertain terms, about what nouns and pronouns are.  I had to answer questions confidently and authoritatively.

One of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome was my lack of improvisation skills.  Each day I had to prepare a lesson, and each day I worked from a basic outline.  But speaking interactively with students of various levels and personalities meant that I was working from a different “script” each time I taught the lesson.  Essentially, I was putting on six different performances each day, catering each one to its individual audience.

This took a huge amount of effort on my part to learn to speak in front of people asking questions, who had confused expressions or had never been exposed to this particular subject matter.  In the end, I overcame a lot of my anxiety and dread at speaking improvisationally in front of students, and now I feel that my skills have improved to the point where I could teach a class and not have many confused looks at all.  In fact, I’m positive I could have explained McPsycho’s ideas in better terms than she did.

As you can see, a major component in success in any field, theatre or otherwise, is excellent oral communications skills.   Clear communication can push your production from “good” to “phenomenal” very quickly.  Clear, concise communication can get past confusion and frustration and ease the way to understanding and efficiency.

Had McPsycho learned to communicate her ideas in a more clear fashion, the show might’ve been a lot better and a lot tighter.

Have you ever had any situations where bad communication skills got in the way of getting things done?  Do you have any success stories?  Tell me about them in the comments.  I’d love to hear them!