Notes on Notes on Directing
More Notes on Notes on Directing
I. Understanding the Script
1. Read the play
2. Take a break and read it again
3. If you have any choice, try to fit the designers to the work
4. Don’t finalize the designs too early
5. Read each character’s part through as if you were playing it
6. Don’t overstudy
7. Learn to love a play you don’t particularly like
8. Identify the story’s compelling question
9. Realize that the human experience is one of suffering and the resolution of suffering
10. Appreciate that character is the result of conduct
11. Understand that plays depict people in extraordinary circumstances
12. Recognize that the struggle is more important than the outcome
13. Realize that the end is in the beginning
14. Express the core of the play in as few words as possible
II. The Director’s Role
15. You are the obstetrician
16. Just tell the story
17. Don’t always connect all the dots
18. Keep the audience guessing
19. Don’t try to please everybody
20. You can’t have everything
21. Don’t expect to have all the answers
22. No actor likes a lazy director, or an ignorant one
23. Assume that everyone is in a permanent state of catatonic terror
24. Lighten up
25. Don’t change the author’s words
26. You perform most of the day
27. It is not about you
28. The best compliment for a director: “You seemed from the beginning to know exactly what you wanted.”
III. Casting
29. Directing is mostly casting
30. Don’t expect the character to walk in the door
31. Put actors at ease, but don’t befriend them
32. Don’t act with auditioners
IV. First Read-Through
33. Don’t start with a great long brilliant speech
34. Don’t let the actors mumble through the reading
35. Talk it out after the reading
36. Ask basic questions
37. Mark the waves in a scene
V. Rehearsal Rules
38. Work from your strength
39. Rehearsals need discipline
40. Plan the schedule a week at a time
41. Don’t keep actors hanging about needlessly
42. Don’t apologize when you don’t have to
43. Make sure stage management get proper breaks
44. Say thank you
45. Include the crew
46. Always read the scene by yourself just before rehearsing it with the cast
47. Don’t bury your head in the script
48. Treat difficult moments as discoveries
49. Don’t work on new material when people are tired
50. End rehearsals on an upbeat note
51. Don’t be grim
52. If you choose to allow outsiders to see a late rehearsal
VI. Building Blocks
53. Every scene is a chase scene
54. The strength of the characters’ wants equals the strength of the play
55. Ask: Is it nice or nasty? Big or little?
56. Every actor has a tell
VII. Talking to Actors
57. Discussion about character is best done piecemeal, as the work demands
58. Start nice
59. Make a strong entrance
60. The actor’s first job is to be heard
61. Sincerely praise actors early and often
62. Talk to the character, not the actor
63. Always sit and read a scene before blocking it
64. Do not expect too much too soon
65. Never, NEVER bully
66. Keep actors on their task
67. Never express actions in terms of feelings
68. Tell actors: “Watch their eyes”
69. Actors are notoriously inaccurate about the quality of their own performances
70. Please, PLEASE be decisive
71. Being direct is appropriate for a director, but not always
72. Give actors corrective notes in private
73. Know your actors
74. Don’t give notes just prior to a performance or run-through
75. Don’t assume people can take the harsh truth, even if they ask for it
76. Introduce bad news with “and” not “but.”
77. Include every single member of the cast in your note sessions
78. Always walk through changes
79. Reverse the material
80. Don’t play the end of scene at the beginning
81. Play against the given condition
82. Be gentle with actors just coming off book
83. Frequently ask: “Who are you talking to?”
84. Anger is always preceded by pain
85. Tell actors: “Localize abstract things”
86. In later rehearsals, ask yourself: “Do I believe it?”
87. Consider late table work
VIII. Getting a Laugh
88. Humor falls mostly into one of two categories
89. Actors must never aim for the laugh
90. Play peek-a-boo
91. The best judge of humor is the audience
92. Proper audience focus is key to an effective joke
93. If a joke’s not working, try reversing positions
94. Good humor requires a bad disposition
IX. Elements of Staging
95. If it moves, the eye will follow
96. Every object tells
97. Love triangles
98. When few characters are on stage in a large space, keep them apart
99. Imbalance adds interest
100. Choose a facing angle
101. Stand up
102. Don’t stand still
104. An audience’s interest in the action is only as high as the actors’ interest in it
105. Listening is active
106. Character reactions should be active and outward, not passive and inward
107. Turn your back
108. Give your actors face time
109. Style has its reasons
110. Consider if you’re missing a costume moment
111. Respect the power of music
112. Use sound to prompt the audience to imagine the unseen, off-stage world
113. Acting solutions are always better than technical solutions
114. Beware the naked truth
X. Last Tips
115. When a scene isn’t clicking, the entrance was probably wrong
116. Blocking problem?
117. When a scene is well acted, clearly understood, and boring
118. When a scene is well timed, well acted, clearly understood, and STILL boring
119. Listen for overzealous vocal entrances
120. Listen for actors who drop the ends of lines
121. An actor is lost in his role
122. An actor dries completely on his lines in performance
123. If an actor abuses you publicly, stay calm
124. Don’t lose your cool
125. Watch for and value happy accidents
126. Got a great moment? Do it again
127. Got a great moment? Keep it to yourself
128. Some things are not and should not be repeatable
129. Don’t hold the audience captive during a long scene change
130. How to handle critics
Epilogue
Appendix I: The What Game
Appendix II: Friends & Enemies
The Invisible Audience
Subjects and Objects
Appendix III: Simplicity, Variety, and Clarity
Simplicity
Variety
Clarity
Appendix IV: Meaning It
Appendix V: Recommended Reading
Acknowledgments
Index