COPYRIGHT AND USE OF THIS THESIS This thesis must be used in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Reproduction of material protected by copyright may be an infringement of copyright and copyright owners may be entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. Section 51 (2) of the Copyright Act permits an authorized officer of a university library or archives to provide a copy (by communication or otherwise) of an unpublished thesis kept in the library or archives, to a person who satisfies the authorized officer that he or she requires the reproduction for the purposes of research or study. The Copyright Act grants the creator of a work a number of moral rights, specifically the right of attribution, the right against false attribution and the right of integrity. You may infringe the author’s moral rights if you: - fail to acknowledge the author of this thesis if you quote sections from the work - attribute this thesis to another author - subject this thesis to derogatory treatment which may prejudice the author’s reputation For further information contact the University’s Director of Copyright Services sydney.edu.au/copyright Learning to Inhabit the Chair Knowledge transfer in contemporary Australian director training Christopher David Hay A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Performance Studies Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences The University of Sydney May 2014 Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance? W.B. Yeats, “Among School Children”. ∞ ii ∞ Somewhere along the way, my dear, You’ve made an awful error. You oughtn’t blame yourself now Come along. You seem to think that people Like people, what are clever. It’s very quaint, it’s very sweet, But wrong! People don’t like smarty pants What go ’round claiming That they know stuff We don’t know. Now here’s a tip. What you know matters less Than the volume with which What you don’t know’s expressed! Content has never been less important. So you have got to be… LOUD! Tim Minchin, “Loud” from Matilda the Musical. ∞ iii ∞ abstract How are theatre directors trained today? Although there is a body of work around what directors do, little sustained critical attention has been paid to the nature of teaching and learning within director training. Training a director has been called “teaching the unteachable” (Fliotsos, 2004) and leading practitioners assert “no amount of learning will make you a director” (Hall, 2000) — yet training courses do exist, and something, indeed many things, are taught in them. It is a kind of teaching and learning, though, which does not fit dominant models of pedagogy: “practical knowledge(s) […] have traditionally been hard to capture in meaningful ways and have, as a result, often been represented as a weaker alternative to theory” (Prior, 2012:xxiii). Using a theoretical framework drawn from the sociology of education, this thesis analyses how knowledge is transmitted and legitimated in creative arts training. This methodology seeks to understand the ‘on the ground’ realities of training, bringing into simultaneous view the official curriculum, institutional aspirations and the messy business of training. Using ethnographic fieldwork to apply this framework to the Directing program at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney, Australia, this thesis concentrates on the dual questions of what is taught and how it is taught. Research has been conducted from within the Institute, paying close, sustained attention to what goes on in the room during training. This work aims to contribute to debates around the accreditation of creative arts training, and the survival of conservatoire-style training. In a regulatory environment where institutions around the world now have to legitimate practical knowledges in systems designed to accredit primarily theoretical coursework, the framework proposed by this research allows trainers to account for the full spectrum of their work. ∞ iv ∞ acknowledgements Although there is only one name on the cover page, there is no pretending that this document is a solo effort. So many people have made my work what it is today, and I am not going to attempt to pay tribute to them all here. I will simply say this: doctoral research is a struggle, infinitely frustrating and infinitely rewarding, and I am here today with this tome in hand thanks only to the people around me. A few, though, demand special thanks. Dr. Glen McGillivray has been an exemplary supervisor throughout this project; patient, rigorous, and with a formidable ability to sculpt my often purple prose into coherent paragraphs. I was truly lucky to have such safe hands guiding me in to land. Dr. Daniel Johnston’s sensitive advice at key moments — and willingness to talk out any point across our shared desk, no matter how mundane — was also immensely valuable. The combined wisdom of the corridor in the Department of Performance Studies at the University of Sydney contributed more to this project than almost any other source. For all the anecdotes, half-remembered quotations, and so much more besides, thanks to: Dr. Amanda Card, Dr. Paul Dwyer, Dr. Laura Ginters, Daniel, Associate Professor Ian Maxwell, and Glen. I could not have dreamt up a warmer, more inviting place to do this work. My completion buddy Rosie Findlay has been such a solid rock of support throughout this final year, and I can’t imagine what I would have done without her. Our fellow students of the Friday Seminar, in particular Kath Bicknell, Robin Dixon, Kat Roma Greer, Miranda Heckenberg, Janice Hinckfuss, Katie Johnson, Carla Lever, and Trischelle Roberts, were always willing to lend an ear, a hand, or a book. I was lucky enough to tutor and lecture throughout my candidature, and I am certain that this played a large role in keeping me sane. I, and this project, have learnt so much from the teachers with whom I tutored in the Department: Kath, Robin, Paul, Rosie, Katie, Daniel, and Ian. I cannot reiterate enough how important I believe teaching is to the work we do in academia, and I am so proud to have worked alongside such gifted colleagues. This research would not have existed at all without the support of Egil Kipste and the students of the Graduate Diploma of Dramatic Art (Directing) at NIDA. In the face of scepticism and hostility, they were always behind the work I was doing, and for that I cannot thank them enough. I’d like to offer special thanks to Lisa Burns and Zoe Knight for their help with all things administrative, and to Julia Mant, the superlative NIDA Archivist. ∞ v ∞ In a project which is substantially about the value of teaching, it would be remiss of me not to thank all of the extraordinary teachers from whose work I have benefitted over my years as a student. In particular, I would like to thank Rosalie Young at Eastwood Public School, and Dr. John Hughes at Sydney Grammar School, who both taught me so much about words, ideas, and dreams. Their lessons live on in these pages. I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by kind and enthusiastic friends throughout my candidature. All of them made it so much easier to make it to the end in one piece, in ways of which even they might not have been aware. In particular, I’d like to acknowledge the many and varied contributions of Bec, Brydie, Clare, Daniel, Dom, Edwina, Jono, Ken, Pierce, Scott, Sean, and Tina. And a special thanks to Billy, who was there at the end. As always, my family have been incredibly supportive of this project, in so many ways. Mum, Dad and Kimberley have put up with a lot to get this work over the line, and I am very much in their debt. I would especially like to thank all of my grandparents, and in particular Elva and Stan Daglish. This thesis is dedicated to their kindness, generosity, and determination. I certainly have a lot to live up to. ∞ vi ∞ table of contents Abstract iv Acknowledgements v Table of Contents vii Prologue 1 Chapter One: Shooting an Elephant 3 1.2 Training on the Broad Spectrum 7 1.3 Introducing the Fieldwork 15 1.4 A Note on Terminology 21 1.5 Mapping this Thesis 25 Chapter Two: A Reliance on Tradition 31 2.1 A Story 32 2.2 The Vital Task 35 2.3 A Brief History of NIDA 44 2.4 Encountering the NIDA of 2010 66 2.5 Looking Forward 78 Chapter Three: A Sociology of Knowledge 80 3.1 A Story 81 3.2 Theoretical Framework 88 3.3 Looking Forward 107 Chapter Four: Simultaneous View 109 4.1 Introduction 110 4.2 A Story 110 4.3 Participant Observation 115 4.4 Directors & Directing 118 4.5 NIDA Goes to Berlin 128 4.6 Looking Forward 150 Chapter Five: Élite but not Elitist 152 5.1 A Story 153 5.2 Élite Knowers in the Literature 157 5.3 Talent as a Knower Code 160 5.4 Teaching in the Élite Mode 164 5.5 Case Study: Puplick versus NIDA 171 5.6 Looking Forward 180 ∞ vii ∞ Chapter Six: The Promise of Becoming 181 6.1 Introduction 182 6.2 Markers of Professionalism 184 6.3 Élite Capstones 188 6.4 The Graduation Productions 192 6.5 Looking Forward 213 Chapter Seven: Invisible Made Visible 216 7.1 Introduction 217 7.2 Master(y) of a Discipline 218 7.3 Endgame 224 7.4 Future Research Directions 227 7.5 Some Conclusions 232 Bibliography 239 ∞ viii ∞ prologue And the house lights go out.