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Introduction to the Theatre Directing

Bryan L. Viray

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Brief History

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Directing (as defined by de la Cruz, 2004)

A process in which a director’s creative

intelligence engages and meshes with other 

creative intelligences at a variety of levels and

intensities of commitment.

These other intelligences, called collaborators,

help achieve the director’s goal and purpose.

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Job Description

• Mediating with producers

• Choosing the script

•

Absorbing the script• Conducting dramaturgical research

• Performing a structural analysis

• Auditioning and casting• Planning a rehearsal schedule

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Job Description

• Preparing for and attending design conferences

• Meeting with additional collaborators, such as

choreogprahers, composers, audiovisual

specialists

• Rehearsing the actors

• Participating in the paper tech

• Attending the technical and dress rehearsals

• Fine-tuning the performance

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Director

• As an organizer

• Labor Leader

•

Facilitator• Orchestrator of the theatrical score

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The period of gestation/development

• Period in which the play was written

• Playwright’s life and other works

•

Kind of stage for which the play was written• Theatrical conventions of the time

• Studies about the playwright’s plays and the

play I wish to direct• Reviews of previous productions of the play

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The period of gestation/development

• Material related to things mentioned in theplay, e.g. Historical references, place names

• Anything else that might help to understand

the playwright’s art• Visual and aural possibilities that is, pictures

and music that may refer to the production or

inspire me toward the choice of mise en scene• Meetings w/ the playwright and listening to

him talk about the play

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Transforming the text into a performance

• Visual implications of structure

• Clues to the symbology of the action rooted in

the culture

• Metaphors for the myth trajectory of the

soul’s search for regeneration

•

Suggestions for some overpowering image of the existential person framed by the theatrical

void of the performance space

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Qualities

• Maturity (not necessarily age), or life

experience

• Literacy about theater and related arts

• Proficiency in the use of theater tools

• The ability to articulate thoughts, passions,

visions, and intentions

• A general sensitivity to one’s culture, world

events, and life

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Qualities

• A compassion for humanity

• A bravery in defending one’s beliefs, and a

strength of personality that commands

respect

• A voracious appetite for knowledge, feelings,

and experience

• A strong sense of mission about what theater

art can do for society, and become, in society

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Qualities

• A fertile imagination, a sense of fantasy, a

strong sense of self, and a feel for the spiritual

and ineffable, and

• An unmistakable gift for the theatrical and an

aptitude for working in the theatre in

collaborative situations.

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Reference/s

De la Cruz, Edgardo Bengson. (2004). Directing

 for theater: A Personal Approach. Diliman,

Quezon City: University of the Philippines

Press.