Play Directing:Analysis, Communication, and Style

Description

Features

• Focuses on plays as central to the ongoing continuum of live theatre from its origin to the present. An Appendix contains a discussion of the director in  musical theatre and opera.
• Provides a smooth and logical progression of information from one dimension of play directing to another as it explores the director at work with actors, designers, and many other aspects of a production.
• Gives the learning director detailed explanations for all the components of stage blocking, including drawings that clearly demonstrate the building blocks of making effective groundplans and evolving expressive compositions, picturizations, and movements, all of which are seen as powerful means of communicating with actors and audiences rather than as technical functions removed from the life of the play.
• Emphasizes the importance of the director's understanding and mastery of style in both playscripts and production.
• Describes how effective direction is essential at all levels of production, from the beginner, to the advanced director, to the professional.
• Helps students build a solid foundation that will make possible their own creative approaches to directing as they master the fundamentals.

New to this Edition

• Features a greatly expanded treatment of the director-designer relationship with a view to providing information and exercises for development in this key area.
• Includes two new or augmented chapters on the director's preparation to be an effective collaborator in the design process and in the actual process of working with designers in production.
• Includes an expanded bibliography with an updated survey of works related to directing, providing students with valuable guidelines to further study.
• Exercises have been revised or new ones added for increased focus on points discussed in the text, expanding the opportunities for practical learning. 

Table of Contents

Dedication

Preface and Credits for Photographs.


 1. Why the Director?


 2. What Is a Play? Analysis and Improvisation.

I. PLAY-ANALYSIS: TAKING A PLAY APART.

 3. The Foundation and Facade of the Playscript: Given Circumstances and

            Dialogue.

 4. The Core of the Playscript: Dramatic Action and Characters.

 5. Idea and Rhythm-Mood Beats.

 6. The Director's Preparation.

II. COMMUNICATION 1:  THE DIRECTOR-ACTOR RELATIONSHIP AND STAGE BLOCKING

 7. Directing Is Working with Actors 1.

 8. Learning to See: The Games of Visual Perception.

 9. Helping Actors Communicate through Groundplans.

10. Composition: Helping Actors Discover and Project Basic Relationships.

11. Helping Each Actor Intensify: Gesture and Improvisation with Properties.

12. Picturization: Helping a Group Intensify.

13. The Dynamic Tool of Movement.

14. Coordinating the Blocking Tools in Director-Actor Communication.

15. Helping Actors “Speak” a Play  

16. Directing is Working with Actors 2.

Major Project 1A: Scene Practice.

Major Project 1B: Diagnostic Criticism.

COMMUNICATION THROUGH STAGING OPTIONS .

17. The Director's Responsibility for Working Effectively with Design.

18. The Director and the Stage Machine: Symbolization and Synthesis.

19. Director's Options: Choice of the Stage.

20. Director's Options: Scenery, Properties, and Lighting.

21. Director's Options: Costume, Makeup, and Sound.

HELPING AUDIENCES RECEIVE A PLAY

.

22. Responsibility to Audiences.

Major Project 2: Designing and Directing Your Own One-Act Play Production.

III. INTERPRETATION: A MATTER OF STYLE.

23. Style Is Individual Expression.

24. Style in Playwriting and Playwrights.

25. The Director's Analysis of Style in a Playscript.

26. Style in Production: Making Decisions.

27. Style in Production: Modern Plays.

28. Style in Production: New Plays.

29. Style in Production: Plays of Past Ages.

IV.  COMMUNICATION 2:  THE DIRECTOR-DESIGNER RELATIONSHIP

30. Preparing To Be a Collaborator in the Design Process

31. Directing Is Working with Designers

Major  Project 3: Directing a Full-Length, Fully-Produced Play with Designers

Appendix 1. Directing Musical Theatre and Opera.

Appendix 2. The Director and the Dramaturg.

Appendix 3. Your Future as a Director.

Bibliography.

Index.