Writing to direct

Continuing the series on theatre education for high school students...

So you’ve decided you want to direct a one-act your senior year, and you search and you search and you search, but you just can’t find the right script for you.

In that case, you might want to consider writing your own play. That way, you customize the show for your performance space, your available casting pool, and your overall comfort level. Basically, you choose your own directing adventure.

If you opt for this route, only a handful of limitations stand before you: any guidelines of appropriateness required in your school, budget constraints, your school’s stage, and the laws of physics and reality. Still, you’ve got tons of freedom.

You want to do comedy? Drama? Romance? Sheer absurdity? The choice is yours.

There are many different facets of playwriting I could talk about, but let’s focus on just one for now:

When writing a play, consider movement.

This is especially useful if you’re writing this play for your directorial debut and you’re still learning the ropes about that side of the operation, too. If you incorporate movement into your script, that’s less you’ll have to figure out during the rehearsal process--and more that will organically develop on its own. But the key here is to incorporate movement that needs to happen, as opposed to arbitrary movement for the sake of movement.

I wrote my first play my senior year of high school for the purpose of having something to direct. Without even consciously realizing it at the time, I incorporated a simple set-up that generated tons of action throughout the show.

This one-act was based on my senior Homecoming dinner experience, and therefore, I called it “The Play About Homecoming.” I was part of a group of six. The three girls were friends of mine, and the other two guys didn’t even go to our school...and those two guys were a little on the unusual side. Or a lot on the unusual side. One thought he'd impress the girls by trying to resuscitate his chicken dinner, for example. So, there was plenty of fodder for comedy there, especially when you have license to exaggerate things to absurd proportions. (This is playwriting, not journalism.)

Dinner, of course, is a somewhat static activity. People just sit at the table and talk. While you can develop some fun dialogue in such a situation, it’s not very visual. And theatre is in large part a visual medium. If I just had everyone sitting at a table for 15-20 minutes, it would have dragged.

So, I placed the women’s restroom to one side of the table, and the men’s restroom at the other. I couldn’t build those sets, so I simply established them with signs and had the actors pantomime opening the doors and washing their hands. This gave the girls a place to run off to when they needed to vent about their horribly awkward dates. And I could also have the dorky guys act all goofy while admiring themselves in their bathroom mirror.

By giving a place for the actors to move to, a snowball effect occurred. I kept thinking of more pieces of action and comedy to incorporate into the script.

Movement helps the overall flow of a show tremendously. When you first begin writing your script, figure out a basic set for the show and have it be a functional set. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, and it probably shouldn’t be. I used little more than a table and two invisible bathrooms, and with that, my cast generated tons of laughter from an appreciative audience.

Remember, movement can help actors keep their energy up. Sometimes, it provides memory cues for lines. Most importantly, it gives the audience something dynamic to watch.

Casting

Continuing the series on theatre education for high school students...

Casting a show can be fun, but there’s one potentially stressful part. For most school one-act festivals, you’re competing with several other directors for the same pool of actors. You probably won’t get everyone you want. You have to realize that going in.

As I said last time, you need to consider alternative cast members before you meet with the other directors. That way, if one actor isn’t available, you have someone else in mind you’re comfortable with.

Here’s the tricky part here...Unless you’re doing a one-person show, no actor gets cast in a vacuum. You’re looking for talent in each individual actor, yes, but you also want to make sure these people have some chemistry with each other--that they look and feel right together.

For example, if your script calls for three girls who all need to be the same age and who appear together frequently, you might not want to cast one senior and two freshmen. Unless she looks as young as the freshmen, the senior might stand out in an awkward way. They might all be great individually, but something could look a little off when you put them together.

It’s easy to get so focused on each individual role that you forget about the larger picture.

Of course, you’re not going to get your ideal cast. You’ll have to make concessions, just as the other directors will make concessions that will work in your favor.

When life throws you bozos, write a play

My high school senior Homecoming resulted in my first original one-act play -- a farce.

The play, “The Play About Homecoming,” went over well with its high school audience, and my cast did great. The show brought considerable laughter to an auditorium full of teenagers. But what I and a few friends had to endure to get it…

I was very last-minute with the whole Homecoming thing. Three days before the dance, I learned one of my female friends was dateless, so I figured I’d swoop in and save the day.

She wasn’t the problem, and neither were her two best friends—but their dates left pretty much everything to be desired.

One was a 21-year-old guy who for some reason wanted to go to a high school Homecoming with a 17-year-old girl he barely knew. The other was our same age, but not our same level of hygiene, and he wore a tie-dyed shirt under some garish sportscoat.

I’ll withhold the names of the girls. They suffered enough. I don’t even remember the guys’ names at this point.

Neither fellow qualified as a gentleman. I’m not saying I was Mr. Wonderful, but I was at least Mr. Tolerable. However, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum...no.

Note-taking during auditions

Continuing the series on theatre education for high school students...


So you’re the director going into auditions to cast your wonderful show. You’ve got some excellent cold reading pieces picked out, and you’ve thought of some sample directions to throw at people. Plus, you know precisely what sort of actors you’re looking for.

You’ve got it all figured out...except for one thing.

While the actors are jumping through your hoops, what are you supposed to be doing?

Simple: Take notes. Good notes.

Different people have different styles. There’s no one right answer on what to do here. But here’s what I’ve done...

On some line paper, write down each actor’s name as they come in to audition. If it’s someone you don’t know, jot down some quick notes about what they’re wearing and what they look like--whatever will jog your memory and help you connect the name to the performance 30 auditions and two hours later.

Cold readings

Continuing the series on theatre education for high school students...

I never liked auditioning as an actor, but the process is much more fun when you’re on the other side of the table.

Still, as the director, you need to have a plan going in.

Part of your job is to pick out excerpts from your script for cold readings. For those unfamiliar with the term, a cold reading is basically the opposite of a prepared monologue. A cold reading is an excerpt from the script handed to actors at an audition, and they have maybe a few minutes to prepare before they’re called to perform it in front of the director.

The cold reading will help you determine which actors can think on their feet and demonstrate creativity.

After they perform their initial reading, you can give them some direction. This is the most fun part.

The goal here is to see if the actors can take direction. The ideal actor can both develop his/her own ideas for the role and also incorporate your ideas. It’s the old saying: Two heads are better than one. Theatre is a collaborative art. A wild card actor or a tyrannical director might reduce the quality of the overall production.

Ground plans

Continuing the series on theatre education for high school students...

Directors need to establish the framework in which their actors move around. That’s the ground plan.

After you read the script several times, sketch out what the stage will look like--but only generally. Don’t be picking out the color of the couch just yet. That’s irrelevant at this point. But do figure out where that couch will be located in relation to other prominent set pieces and props. Here, you’re focusing on what goes where.

As you do so, you have to keep two things in mind. First, how do you need the actors to move? Second, how would your ground plan compel the actors to move in the absence of your direction?

And realize this: Copyright law dictates that you follow the script’s dialogue exactly as it’s written, but you are free to ignore the stage directions. (I’m no lawyer, of course, but that’s what I was taught.)

So, the actors have to say all the lines in the script as written. When you’re designing the ground plan and blocking the show, think of the script’s stage directions more as suggested guidelines, but do whatever works for your production. (After all, the playwright doesn’t know what performance space you’re working with.)

Preparing to direct

Continuing the theatre education series for high school students...

Photo courtesy: www.stockfreeimages.com

When you’re the director, you have to do several things before you step foot into the first rehearsal. Otherwise, your leadership may amount to little more than “Okay, actors--go!” and “Okay, actors--stop!”

After you find the script you want to direct, you need to re-read it several times. Each time, have a different focus. Here are four important topics to consider:

1.) You want to define in your mind the purpose of the play. Is it just a simple comedy designed to make people laugh, and that’s it? Is it trying to provoke thought? Does it have a theme you want to emphasize?

The production needs a reason to exist beyond “Well, I felt like directing a play my senior year, so...yeah...I’m doing this one...”

Why theatre?


A few years ago, I wrote some theatre education articles for another website. I'll gradually transfer them over here for whoever happens to be interested. Here's the first:




Every city needs a theatre district.

With so many forms of media in existence, what’s the point of continuing to do theatre? After all, theatre is old enough for Sophocles to have taken part. Ancient Greece had no television, movies, CDs, iPods, or anything of the sort to keep them entertained. They didn’t even have the printing press back in the day.

It’s clear why theatre appealed to people in ancient times. Their options for artistic recreation were limited. But why do we continue thousands of years later?

Just because something is old doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it. Theatre can do things no other medium can.