Directing

As a Chicano director and writer, I am inspired by my own culture—the influence of poetry and magical realism, the contradictions and collision of European and Indigenous cultures, the corridos and huapangos of home, the memories of sitting on the porch hearing my family’s stories, and my own ever-growing inquiry into the nature of storytelling—from the specific to the universal—all came to mind in the design of the play.

#RightsWeek post: No one gets into directing new plays because they want to copy someone else’s work. For me, the fun is in solving a monumental problem in a completely unique and aesthetically elegant manner.

Patricia Davis interviews DC-based director Stevie Zimmerman, discussing casting, directing styles, and the challenges of new work.

Translator Henning Bochert and playwright Carlos Murillo talk playwriting and directing US theatre.

Michael Rau and Will Davis share different approaches to make collaboration work in theatre-making.

Stage combat is the art of creating the illusion of violence for the sake of storytelling. Some illusions are easier and/or less expensive than others. One thing I’ve found myself saying many times is that the difference between one character pulling a knife on another versus breaking a bottle and threatening to attack them with the broken base is hundreds of dollars.

Sheryl Sandberg, author of "Lean In", has just launched a campaign to "Ban Bossy," so that girls who used to be called bossy start to be told instead that they are leaders. Efforts like this to change the culture, though, are long-game solutions to an immediate problem. In the meantime, how do women directors, especially those just starting out, balance the competing demands of actually leading with gendered expectations as to what constitutes good leadership?

The last two posts of this series have documented the kinds of rehearsal scheduling and breaks that some of the Polish post-Grotowski theaters use. However, in addition to this normal set of practices, on rare occasions, some theaters rehearse without taking any breaks at all.

Director Jess K. Smith investigates women directors' use of language in theatre and calls for a revolution of women's use of language that is not apologetic, dominating, or rooted in fear.

This period of shared, relaxed time puts the performers in harmony with the theater, the rehearsal, and their fellow actors. It's like musicians tuning in the same room together. When I participated in this pre-rehearsal hangout, despite my initial antsiness, and not knowing what to do with this unstructured time, I found that my mind grew calmer. The flexible start was a moment of meditation before a strenuous activity: a deep breath before the dive.

In this interview, Director Marianne Weems talk aesthetics, pedagogy, The Builders Association, and her two current plays on tour.

Our US union regulations and laws require us to take breaks of a certain time, at a certain time. But nothing requires us to take *exactly* and *only* 5 minutes every hour or 10 minutes every 90. Why not, as an experiment, give them more? Why not make one break longer, and looser? An ongoing series of reports from rehearsal rooms and interviews with theater people in Poland; how US artists can modify or adapt Polish techniques for their own rehearsal kitchens.

Yes, some rehearsals (not all, mind you) are paid, and have to be regulated, legally, as work. But why did we decide, as US practitioners, that theater rehearsals fell so wholly into the realm of work and were so utterly unlike things such as parties or play? Why did we push rehearsals all the way to one end of the work-play spectrum? How did we become afraid of rehearsing without a stopwatch?

In this essay, playwright David Kranes reflects and expresses gratitude to the directors who have brought his plays to life onstage.

We all love a good fight (in a show). A reminder to keep things real by checking in with actors and their weapons, maintain a full fight call, and maintaining consistent order.

As a young artist, it is inevitable that there will being learning curves including learning how to navigate new works and the delicate relationships of the new work process.

Alice Reagan, with the help of Chiori Miyagawa, explores the necessity of parting ways and coming back together through revamping the process of creating plays.

Emily Mendelsohn shares insight into her experience directing Cooking Oil written by Deborah Asiimwe in Uganda.

Natasha Lee Martin reached out to the playwright, Mac Wellman, in a series of interviews to get his take on re-envisioning and modernizing his play A Murder of Crows through the use of interactive design technology.

Alisa Solomon shares the complex history of A Trip to Bountiful's journey to Broadway.