Tips for new directors A veteran’s guide to successful storytelling BY MICHAEL DAEHN IF YOU’RE A RELATIVELY new theatre fines the show with the actors, design considering plays to stage, you need to teacher and haven’t had much directo- team, and technicians, and then usually take into account your students’ edu- rial experience, it might not be clear to moves on to the next project. The stage cational needs and the nature of your you exactly what a director contributes manager runs the actual production audience. So, as much as you may to the creation of a successful stage from opening night until it closes. have always dreamed of mounting the work. Simply put, directors tell stories. Directing a high school theatre first Beckett or Pinter festival in your A more detailed description might be: production is another matter. Even school district, please keep that dream A director is the individual who, after if you’ve only directed a few shows, in your sleep. Start by doing a careful much research, reading, and planning, you already know that your work is assessment of the capabilities of your conceives and develops the boundar- never done. You coordinate auditions, casting pool. Do you have students ies of a unique world within which a rehearsals, and production warm-ups, with lots of experience doing a wide playwright’s story and ideas will come solve production problems on a daily range of work, both straight plays and to life. In the process, the director de- basis, and usually see most of the run musicals? Or is your program relatively termines which character, plot, or de- (if you’re not fixing box office snafus new and undeveloped, with students sign elements need to be emphasized or wardrobe malfunctions). of little or no acting experience? What so that a production’s spine, or central What I’m going to do here is pres- are their technical capabilities and ex- idea, is communicated to an audience. ent a few points every new director perience? And so on. You also need to To draw this artistic blueprint of ought to bear in mind before stepping take into consideration your own expe- the world of the play, the director into the role of storyteller. I’m not sug- rience, or lack of: do you really want collaborates with designers, music di- gesting what I have to say is the last to take on the complicated challenge rectors, a choreographer, actors, and word on directing a stage play—this is of a full-length musical, for example? technical staff. To share her vision and just to get you to start thinking about And, finally, what is it you’re trying ac- inspire the production’s creative team, the basics. For more in-depth directo- complish educationally? Do you want she uses poetic images, lines from the rial advice, check out some of the texts to show your students what it’s like to script, musical riffs and lyrics from the included in the sidebar on page 27. work in a large ensemble, or would it score (if it’s a musical), and any other Here’s my to-do list, more or less in make more sense to break them into means at her command. chronological sequence. groups for an evening of small-cast In a professional production, as Pick your play with your cast short plays? opening night nears, the director re- and audience in mind. When you’re Along with your students’ needs and abilities, you need to choose stories Master storytellers at work: director Vance Fulkerson (in stripes, top photo and bottom left) leads that will engage the folks who fill your rehearsals for Hairspray, in preparation for International Cast production at the 2008 Thespian Festival; seats. They are the ones who pay your and Holly Stanfield (in red sweater, bottom right) works with two principal actors in the 2007 International Cast much-needed ticket revenues, drive staging of Thoroughly Modern Millie. your novice actors to rehearsals, and TEACHING THEATRE 21 provide support in general for your otherwise would be to them a vague, caretaking character roles. A reading theatre program. They deserve some foreign world—one that would be is a reading, but if you know what entertainment value. very difficult for audiences who lived lives at the core of each character in Read your play the right way. through these events to believe. your play, you can link those roles to By this, I mean the way you listen to Determine the voice of your play. students who project those very same your favorite tunes—over and over Figure out what you want your compa- qualities. again. Good directors get to know their ny’s production to say to the audience Know your story backwards plays extremely well by reading them who will experience it. That means you and forwards. Before you can allow frequently and with purpose. Each need to know what your central mes- your actors the freedom to explore the reading should focus on a specific ele- sage or spine is throughout the entire world of the play, you must possess a ment. One time it’s entrances, exits, creation process—from first production clear understanding of the play’s struc- and possible staging; another is to find meeting through opening night. Any- ture. For instance, is it linear, with one key events or character subtext; a third thing that helps to tell that story ought event leading to the next in chrono- might be to read aloud for rhythms to be included while, at the same time, logical fashion? The Crucible is a good and pace considerations; a fourth to you should be careful to discard things example, as are the musicals Grease explore the arc of story and characters that are either not relevant or poten- and Hairspray. Or is your chosen play alike; the fifth, for whatever reason you tially confusing to an audience. an episodic or “string of pearls” work, think is necessary. Here’s an example of the latter: in which scenes are presented in a dis- Do your homework. We have all The director of a production of Agatha jointed sequence, such as The Laramie had a research assignment we pro- Christie’s Ten Little Indians might want Project and Godspell? Either structure crastinated on and ended up with a the audience to believe every character requires that you do a careful analysis less-than-desirable project as a result. is capable of being the murderer, so of every dramatic action and event that To create a world, you need to know she emphasizes the potential for evil occurs in the entire play. a lot about it. That means serious re- in every character in the play. Such a One type of analysis is called back- search—online and off—of the cultural, directorial choice might achieve the wards and forwards. It’s a strategy historical, and behavioral aspects of director’s intent but only by ignoring developed by the director David Ball your chosen script through written, the script’s equally compelling roman- to help directors gain a clearer under- visual, spoken (such as dialects and tic, heroic, and even comic storylines. standing of each progressive step of a class-generated language), or musi- Another director discovers a comic play’s story and relationships. To use cal sources that will help you imagine moment in rehearsal, perhaps a hic- this system, you start at the end of the and share the playwright’s story. Your cup or burp or passing of gas, which play and work toward the beginning, homework or the lack of it will serve could easily translate into a modest, listing every dramatic action and its as either an inspiration or an obstacle very enjoyable laugh once the produc- cause backwards. Ball calls this process to your company. The more thoroughly tion opens. Unfortunately, the mistaken the “trigger and heap” of each event. you describe your world vision of the belief that this moment can grow in Ball teaches that a dramatic action is play, the easier it will be for them to comic size or become a running gag or comprised of two events: a trigger and help you create it. motif throughout the production often a heap. Each heap becomes the next Here’s an example of the kind intrudes on a play’s dramatic rhythms. action’s trigger, so that actions are like of research I mean: In the summer To perhaps gain a few laughs, the story dominoes toppling one into the next. of 2004, I directed a production of itself is put on hold and never quite His theory is, by preceding backwards, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible at the reaches the emotional peak it could trigger domino by heap domino, there American High School Theatre Fes- have attained. Again, it is important can be no accidental detours since we tival in Edinburgh, performed by we keep our eyes on the directorial already know how the story ends—a Senator Joseph McCarthy’s hometown prize—a clearly realized and under- much sounder approach than heading high school in Wisconsin, Appleton stood, audience-engaging, dramatic in from the beginning of the play. West. We set our deconstructed pro- story. Similarly, Ball’s idea of a forward duction in 1954 at the height of the Cast the right students in the event refers to those moments in the House Anti-American Activities Com- right roles. Good casting is crucial, play that grab an audience’s attention mittee hearings.