12/08/2020
So my most recent writing project is the first draft of a project I've been wanting to do for several years. I finally was able to buckle down and draft it. It is my first non-fiction work, a handbook on theatrical directing.
I've taught directing and the fact is, the textbooks I've seen are - not me. First, they're often about what directing is like when you've got money. In a high end professional or university theatre that has not just direct monetary resources, but the ability to attract and pay people, like designers, stage managers, technicians. That's not the world I work in.
Second, they're simply not practical guides. There's a lot of artsy bu****it, or simply impossible things. The worst I saw was an outline for analysis that included, in character analysis, that you write down both the heart rate and perspiration rate of that character. What? Even if you could find an actor who could control either of those things, why would you want them to? That sounds to me like it was written by someone who has never cast a show or worked with actors to put a play up.
So I wanted to write a book about how to just plain put a play on a stage. I have a method that works for me. Other people have methods that work for them, and I'm not knocking those, but I am saying - if you suddenly find you're in charge of putting on a play on your own for whatever reason, for the first time, you can follow these directions and you'll have a play. And if you have done it before but want to look at how someone else does it, you can look at my ideas..
I also speak to my personal philosophies of directing, including how you treat everyone you work with, how you do the job and take responsibility, how you do not quit until opening night. I don't personally find any of it revolutionary, but I have met a few actors who thought parts of it were.
So where this passion project goes, I don't know. But it feels good to say it all, write it down. I feel I have enough experience now to really have something useful to say. And this is the kind of book I would've wanted when I was teaching.
