... I thought that one day I will write a textbook on directing. That's how this directory began. I keep my notes for class (Fundamentals) I teach and the rest will come natural, by itself.
I still keep my notes here. For myself, not so much for my students. About the textbook I do not think anymore.
-- I keep editing old pages and adding new ones, but the textbook is not in draft stage even. I am not sure anymore that I want to have this "Directing, Textbook"...
I like the web format, I like the freedom (or irresponsibility) it offers. I like the gears (now web-video) and feel that the potential for Theatre Book of a new kind is not explored by me fully yet.
Of course, I have to time to "write" a book, while I am teaching class [ and I teach this course almost every year ]. I do not have time even to read what I wrote...
When? After my retairement? If I still will be interested...
First, I want to thank my students; so many of them tolerate my experiments in class and on stage, their experiences with my webpages, forums and other Virtual Theatre innovations. Second, my collegues, of course, who also were paintient with me. And, yes, you, virtual students of theatre...
The name "StageMatrix" refers mostly to part III & IV; how to create the spectacle, using metrical method (Meyerhold) and organize the Matrix of the show, where spectator lives (experiencing drama).
New: this time I want to introduce the filmmaker's methods to stage directing. And the Biomechanics theory.
Featured Pages: Theatre Theory directory
Many directing pages are lost during the migration from theGlobe to Geocities!
Many pages I do not know where to place: Rehearse page, for example. Rehearsals is the true directing time, I like this process of "writing" a show much more that show itself. Everything is a rehearsal. Even a show. A rehearsal for the next show.
Rehearsal techniques? Oh, there are so many!
I believe in this old fashion apprentenship: come and see for yourself how I do it. In Moscow it was always some crowd behind you during the rehearsals. I don't mind, if they are quiet. Then it was called "open rehearsals"...
PART I: THE PRODUCER
1. The Producer's Role
3. The Producer's Interaction with the Theatre Team
PART II: THE DIRECTOR
5. The Director's Role
6. The Director's Interaction with the Theatre Team
Questions
Fundamentals of Directing provides an overview of the director's job and major responsibilities. The course emphasizes elements of preproduction as a foundation for rehearsal and performance. You will develop informed directorial approaches to the scripts we read and see together, and you will apply specific directorial techniques in your final project. Much of the class time will focus on developing practical exercises or explanations of the director's role in theatre with strong applications to film, video and other media platforms.
Again, I want to point out that there is very little in this directory about directing actors. I have three acting directories (Acting I -- BioMethod, Acting II -- Biomechanics, Acting III -- Method), use them.
Do you see this new logo above? If you want to know about film directing, go there!
The Director's Table:
"The work of the director is central to the production of a play. The director has the challenging task of bringing together the many complex pieces of a production — the script, actors, set, costuming, lighting and sound and music—into a unified whole." [National Arts Centre English Theatre]
I know your fears to dream, my friend. I understand why you are afraid to be open. Poet writes hidden from the crowd, actor wears masks, but, listen, you are not on stage too! Only actors and crew will know the process (rehearsals); trust them -- and they will trust you. Trust them, because they trust you. Be free to see and hear -- this is the only place and time, where you can do it. It's better than dreams, it's real, super-real, beyond real -- the magic zone, where REAL becomes divine. The Stage.
Listen, the rest is technology, techniques, craft -- you will pick up all you need on your way to the mountain... What mountain? Your montain, where all poets go to enjoy the essence of life.
I know, I said too many times that directing is a labor, a construction site, maybe I forget to tell what are working on -- the cathedral. The place where you can chanage your and others' lives. Yes, theatre is the only living church today. "Labor is your prayer," yes -- work, dream, live...
Director is the last poet of modernity and the first artist of the postmodern world. The world of neo-primitives, post-humans and ex-humans, the creatures of the 3rd millenium. The last point where you still could keep memories of the human past. Feel blessed, not writer or painter can do it anymore. Live as a first prophet who worried not about what he leaves behind. Enjoy the moment of REAL life, no other LIFE is left besides the LIVE Theatre. Theatre is life.
BTW, on the left you can find all the tools you need. You can find it in any book on directing. God knows, I placed enough amazon links to get the textbooks. Here, on the right, I write about what I couldn't find on the left. Here I write about what keeps me going. Why I do theatre. I thought you might interested in WHY, not only WHAT and HOW.
Anyway, I started my pages for myself and promice myself that I will keep it this way -- the notes.
Do you have your notes? Do you have your diary? Start now.
Do you want to learn how to think? Start writing.
Learn how to feel. Read.
Directing?
It's just a name. It's only looks like a profession, if you are a professional. But the secret is that artist is not a profession, because every day you have to forget what you know and go beyond yesterday, away from you-known...
I say to my students, actors and directors, don't even think about the show, if you don't expect that this show will change your life.
Only then you can hope that it will change the lives of others.
That's how we change the world -- by changing ourselves.
Do it.
I have to rehearse my Oedipus now.
I have to think about shows I have no time to direct. Plays I want to write. Books... Learn how to enjoy yourself, friend, if you others to enjoy you. Working with you. In the books they call "leadership" -- the old name is better -- priest.
"Priest, Prophet and King" -- the old three names given to the first Adam. Did I tell you that you are the last and the first? New Adam.
I do not know if you understand the complexity of this combination, I do not know if you understand how far back this profession goes. They say -- "creator," "creative," "creativity" -- sound familiar?
Go and create YOURSELF, you have the whole life to do it. You do while creating the world. It happens every time you think about your show.
Go, go...
Anatoly 2005
Немирович где-то писал: "Режиссеры наивно полагают, что театры построены для того, чтоб они там ставили спектакли!" Прав, бесконечно прав Владимир Иваныч! Именно что наивно, и именно что полагают. Кто в театре хозяин? Режиссеры и зрители. Мы, зрители, находимся тут по праву. Свои места в партере, в ложах бенуара и на галерке мы честно купили. За них плачены деньги. А по какому праву здесь находятся те? [ ru ]
Can directing be taught? It is a question I have been frequently asked by theatre people -- among them directors from here and abroad -- as well as by friends who represent the other component of performance, the audience. The latter often went on to ask, What is a director actually doing? [ The Craft of the Eclectic. -- Jewel Walker . On Theatre Directing. Master Teachers of Theatre: Observations on Teaching Theatre by Nine American Masters ]
Biomethod: Actor = Artist (Method) + Medium (Biomechanics)
Where both, Stanislasvsky and Meyerhold, were to meet. On "Working with Actors" is not in this directory; see acting webpages.
Anatoly
SEVEN LIVES of a SHOW:
1. A play. Life of a dramatic text with all the history of its live performances and even readings.
2. Conceptialization. Live within the head and heart of a director.
Ultimately, theatre needs three elements: actors, play, and audience. But for theatre to actualize its potential, a person would need to impose his or her point of view that would penetrate all aspects of the production. That person is the director. Directing Theatre
by Debra Bruch [ "You need three things in the theatre -- the play, the actors and the audience, and each must give something." Kenneth Haigh ]
This is the place to say thanks and aknowledge the contributions and help in writing the book, but I want to use it for blaming and cursing.
I want to curse my university, students, other books on theatre... If not for my employment by the University of Alaska, I know for sure that I wouldn't write this book. No way. It's them, my students, who drove me crazy to the point that after classes I had to rash to my computer, trying to right their wrongs! And about the free complimentary books I was recieveing for years? Of course, I would open one or another... and before you know, you are mad about the stuff in them! Yes, you have to run to this damn computer again and fight...
No, it was a torture...
And what about the shows I had to direct? It's in my contract, you know. If in my contract was written that I must shawel the snow in front of the Fine Art building, I am absolutely sure that The Stagematix wouldn't exist and my problems related to it...
What problems? What about the questions I still have no answers? What about hours of writing? Oh, shame on you all!
One of the founders of the profession, V.I. Nemirovitch-Danchenko, said ‘The Stage Director is made up of three parts:
* The director-interpreter of the play; he is the one who shows you how to act and thus you can call him the director-teacher.
* The director-mirror, reflecting the individual qualities of an actor.
* The director-organiser of the whole production…
If you are a director and interested in working with actors, go to Method or/and Biomechanics. This directory (ebook) is for actors -- about how to work with the text and space-time. [Since I teach both THR331 and THR221 at the same time (Spring 2002) you will see a lot of connections. Also, Biomechanics terminology is very important for directors.]
Maybe I will write the real preface, but for now I posted the intro from the textbook "Directors on Directing" (see the class syllabus for reading assignments).
There are two pages I plan to work on that should guide you through this directory: contents and ouline
If you read my pages for a while You can guess that I have too many voices in my head and do not know even the difference between preface and introduction. Never mind, something like "foreword"! Please, don't think that my ignorance is based on my arrogance. I open a book (right now) to learn -- what is what, preface, a preface, the preface? Let me try:
Foreword to the Fourth Edition of my webpages
"This edition of Stagematrix..."
Lets try the "preface" thing:
"It is an honor and a humbling experience... " Thanks?
This is the basic graph of what you need for Stagematrix and how to get to the connected courses.
Director's advice to the players:
Hamlet Act 3 Scene 2
Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion
be your
tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the
action; with
this special observance, that you o'erstep not the
modesty of
nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose
of playing,
whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to
hold, as
'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her
own image,
scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the
time his
form and pressure.
To save you from "theory" I move it to the three theatre directories I have with the Film-North: The Book of Spectator (you see the banner on many pages), Theatre Theory and Virtual Theatre.
[ 2004-2005: I do not know the textbook I have to get for my next directing class; I know I have to get a new one. ]
Spring 2005: Oedipus [ Combination of Method (leads) and Biomechanics (chorus) ] Discussions in class. Assignments. Work with THR221 Intermediate Acting class.
The PRODUCTION BOOK is a complete record of your analysis, interpretation, and preliminary staging ideas for the long scene you stage. It should be organized in a hard binder and should follow the outline I will provide. The production book should be essentially completed (except for blocking) before you begin to direct your scene and should be shown to me. It is a plan for production as well as a journal of your progress.
Production book will also include a two-page SELF ASSESSMENT on the final performance, and a two-page PEER CRITIQUE discussing the issues you saw, and the concepts you discussed when you critiqued a classmate’s scene-in-progress and again in final performance. [ new stage management pages ]
