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First time directing

Question:

If I were directed as described below, I’d kill my director and dump his or her body in the LA River…

why? it’s advice for somebody working with a bunch of beginners…it’s going to be a matter of making something happen fast…no point going into anything too complex and detailed right from the off…no point getting into the heavy end of the emotional spectrum in the early rehearsals because nobody is likely to have the experience to handle it safely and effectively what is your alternative? endless script readings? constant talk about the script with no actual action? or would you have a bunch of young and inexperienced people start dealing with their deepest and most intimate emotions when they have barely got to know each other? — eric "live fast, die only if strictly necessary"

Response:

If I were directed as described below, I’d kill my director and dump his or her body in the LA River… – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -OK the first rule of directing is stay one step ahead of ALL the performers…whatever they ask you must have an instant answer even if it’s only "what do you think?" or "how would you like to try it?" plan your process rather than plan your rehearsals by that I mean work out what order you need to put things together…maybe you need to have everyone comfortable with the emotional narrative before you can even think about pacing…maybe you need the characters thoroughly developed before you can think about movement…it’s up to you…you are the director but you need to know the basic steps by which you will build the thing BEFORE the first rehearsal…and I twigged this one round about my fifth show :( start with a bang…make sure the first part of the first rehearsal is damn exciting…you can calm them all down afterwards…but do something that gets everyone excited warm up and warm down…that doesn’t mean you have to lead group warm ups each rehearsal…but you need a ritual beginning and end to them so that the outside world can be left where it belongs, outside…and so that your actors can become themselves again before they leave I’d guess the next thing you need to do is get the cast playing with the ideas in the script while in the rehearsal room whilst they start learning the thing…if all else fails just set up improv scenes based on reading through a scene and then improvising what happens afterwards look up some theatre games and exercises that will help with your casts weaknesses…feeling that your acting has improved after a rehearsal can really motivate a cast finally a simple character generation exercise that also serves as a warm up/warm down walk round the room slowly…identify exactly how you are walking and what about the way you do it is personal and characteristic of you (do this a step at a time, get them to focus on posture then how they hold their hands/arms etc and so on)…once those personal characteristic have been identified, remove them one by one…until you have a room full of cyphers walking around waiting to have a character imprinted on them now ask each performer to think of a single word appropriate to their character…don’t give them time to think…ask them to add a posture associated with that word…then add in all the movement still associating with that word (you can use several words to give depth either by assigning each word to a different aspect of movement or simply by overlaying them) now you have a set of very simple characters walking around the room…let them interact…silently…then give them a vocabulary…of one word, the same word…play out a few generalised scenes…at the bus stop…in the cafe…on the Jerry Springer Show etc…all with the one word vocabulary now let them learn other people’s words too…play a few more scenes you should be able to build on that general principle at the end of the session simply set the characters walking around the room…remove all the characteristics of the character…and get the cast to start adding back the elements that made their original walk their own

BOYCOTT The Los Angeles Times America’s Socialist Shitrag

Response:

      So i’m a student, and I got voted the director of one of my school’s one-act plays. . . and i’ve never directed before at all. i’ve only been in one show before, and our first rehersal was sort of a flop, we read through the script (which is really mundane and unexciting and not very funny) and then i didn’t have anything to do, so everyone left.   the cast has 5 people in it (3 girls, 2 guys), and everyone already knows each other and everyone’s comfertable with everyone else, but i don’t really know what to do for rehersals? so i’m done rambling now, can you great people please help?

Oh God that brings back some memories…I’ll have nightmares tonight :( OK the first rule of directing is stay one step ahead of ALL the performers…whatever they ask you must have an instant answer even if it’s only "what do you think?" or "how would you like to try it?" plan your process rather than plan your rehearsals by that I mean work out what order you need to put things together…maybe you need to have everyone comfortable with the emotional narrative before you can even think about pacing…maybe you need the characters thoroughly developed before you can think about movement…it’s up to you…you are the director but you need to know the basic steps by which you will build the thing BEFORE the first rehearsal…and I twigged this one round about my fifth show :( start with a bang…make sure the first part of the first rehearsal is damn exciting…you can calm them all down afterwards…but do something that gets everyone excited warm up and warm down…that doesn’t mean you have to lead group warm ups each rehearsal…but you need a ritual beginning and end to them so that the outside world can be left where it belongs, outside…and so that your actors can become themselves again before they leave I’d guess the next thing you need to do is get the cast playing with the ideas in the script while in the rehearsal room whilst they start learning the thing…if all else fails just set up improv scenes based on reading through a scene and then improvising what happens afterwards look up some theatre games and exercises that will help with your casts weaknesses…feeling that your acting has improved after a rehearsal can really motivate a cast finally a simple character generation exercise that also serves as a warm up/warm down walk round the room slowly…identify exactly how you are walking and what about the way you do it is personal and characteristic of you (do this a step at a time, get them to focus on posture then how they hold their hands/arms etc and so on)…once those personal characteristic have been identified, remove them one by one…until you have a room full of cyphers walking around waiting to have a character imprinted on them now ask each performer to think of a single word appropriate to their character…don’t give them time to think…ask them to add a posture associated with that word…then add in all the movement still associating with that word (you can use several words to give depth either by assigning each word to a different aspect of movement or simply by overlaying them) now you have a set of very simple characters walking around the room…let them interact…silently…then give them a vocabulary…of one word, the same word…play out a few generalised scenes…at the bus stop…in the cafe…on the Jerry Springer Show etc…all with the one word vocabulary now let them learn other people’s words too…play a few more scenes you should be able to build on that general principle at the end of the session simply set the characters walking around the room…remove all the characteristics of the character…and get the cast to start adding back the elements that made their original walk their own HTH — eric "live fast, die only if strictly necessary"

Response:

Hi, I’m a student and i’ve been lucky enough to be voted the director of one of our student-written acted, and directed one act plays. But the problem is i’ve never directed before and i’ve only acted in one show as well. we had one rehersal yesterday (thurs) and it wasn’t that great, we read through the script and that was about it. The script is sorta mundane, nothing very exciting happens and it’s not really funny, just another day in life. so does anyone have any advice for a poor guy trying to pretend like he can be a director? Thanks! (btw i also sent a message similar to this one a couple hours ago, but it’s neither in the newsgroup or in my sent messages folder so i tried again, and if it ends up being posted twice, please forgive my transgression) — have fun Travis "I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it."                ~Albert Einstein "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."                ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Response:

      So i’m a student, and I got voted the director of one of my school’s one-act plays. . . and i’ve never directed before at all. i’ve only been in one show before, and our first rehersal was sort of a flop, we read through the script (which is really mundane and unexciting and not very funny) and then i didn’t have anything to do, so everyone left.   the cast has 5 people in it (3 girls, 2 guys), and everyone already knows each other and everyone’s comfertable with everyone else, but i don’t really know what to do for rehersals? so i’m done rambling now, can you great people please help? — have fun Travis "I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it."                ~Albert Einstein "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."                ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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