The Director as Collaborator (2^nd Ed.) Second Edition

The Director as Collaborator teaches essential directing skills while emphasizing how directors and theater productions benefit from collaboration. Good collaboration occurs when the director shares responsibility for the artistic creation with the entire production team, including actors, designers, stage managers, and technical staff. Leadership does not preclude collaboration; in theater, these concepts can and should be complementary. Students will develop their abilities by directing short scenes and plays and by participating in group exercises.

New to the second edition:

• updated interviews, exercises, forms, and appendices
• new chapter on technology including digital research, previsualization and drafting programs, and web-sharing sites
• new chapter on devised and ensemble-based works
• new chapter on immersive theater, including material and exercises on environmental staging and audience?performer interaction

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

What Is Collaboration?

The Core Action

The Responsibilities of Collaboration

Fundamental Techniques

Supplemental Reading

1 Collaboration and Leadership

Balancing Leadership and Collaboration

Supplemental Reading

2 Core Action

Story and Plot

Exercise Critique

Action Analysis

Script Analysis

Key Terms

Supplemental Reading

3 Collaboration in Rehearsal

The First Scene Collaboration

Preparation

Sample Rehearsal Schedule

Rehearsal Observations

Videotaping Rehearsals

Supplemental Reading

4 Directing Elements

Textual Elements

Structure

Actions and Objectives

Shifts and Key Moments

Groundplan

Character

Relationship and Status

Language

Visceral Elements

Tempo and Rhythm

Sound and Mood

Visual Composition

Movement

Stage Configurations

Gesture

Environment

Style

Integrating Directing Elements

Script Analysis

Dramaturgy Checklist

5 Design Collaboration

Core Action Statements

Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen

The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel

The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Design Timetable

Key Terms

Supplemental Reading

6 Other Collaborators

Playwrights

Readings and Staged Readings

Dramaturgy

Music Directors and Choreographers

Key Terms

7 Collaboration and Technology

Technology as a Tool for Collaboration

Technologists and Technical Directors

8 Devised and Immersive Theaters

Devised Theatre

Immersive Theatre

9 Auditions and Casting

Casting the One-Act Plays

Audition Goals

Supplemental Reading

APPENDIX A Forms

Project Proposal Form

Sample Audition Notice

Audition Form

Sample Callback Form

Sample Cast List

Rehearsal Observation Form

Producing Checklist

Program Information

Poster Information

Course Outline

APPENDIX B Glossary of Key Terms

APPENDIX C Bibliography of One-Act Plays

APPENDIX D Selected Bibliography

Directing

Acting

Design

Playwriting

Dramaturgy

Ensembles

Theater History and Theory

Management

Publicity

Index

Robert Knopf is Professor of Theater at the University of Buffalo. A theater director and scholar, he is the author of The Theater and Cinema of Buster Keaton (Princeton University Press, 1999). For Yale University Press, he co-edited Theater of the Avant-Garde, 1950-2000 (2011), and edited Theater and Film (2004), and Theater of the Avant-Garde, 1890-1950 (2015). For the stage, he has directed at Circle-in-the-Square Downtown, Cherry Lane Studio, Paradise Factory, Circle Rep Lab, and historic Town Hall, all in New York City. He served as dramaturg for the National Public Radio series The Archaeology of Lost Voices, for which he adapted and directed the docudrama Hidden Dragon. Prior to his current teaching position, he taught at Purdue University and the University of Michigan, where he was Director of Graduate Studies in Theater.