Being a Director

I originally wrote this post for the Goodman Theatre's educational outreach blog when I was the Michael Maggio fellow there in 2009-10. They wanted me to write about what it is to be a director, and perhaps a bit about how I've gone about my career. This was my response:

I’m often asked what it is a theater director does.  “Do you tell everyone what to do?” my mother asks me.  Others nod their head with some sort of recognition, but then ask me about working on movies.   And most people I encounter assume that a young woman like myself who is involved in theater must be an actress.  I kindly smile and reply that I direct, and they give me a sideways glance and say something polite but non committal.  I assume it is either their lack of knowledge about what a director does or their disbelief that this petit woman before them could actually hold that important-sounding title.  I’m used to it.  I’ve been a director for more than ten years, and while in my early twenties I often got up in arms about such things, I now find thwarting expectations and holding a position some find mysterious is actually quite rewarding.

It still surprises me, however, how little the theatergoing public knows about directing, how often shows are attended and the audience couldn’t possibly conjure the name of the director responsible for the evening of theater in which they just partook.  We are living in the era of the director, only a little over a hundred years after the first directors titled themselves as such.  Theatre has existed for thousands of years, but having one person in charge of uniting and overseeing the production in the manner of a director only really emerged at the end of the 19^th century.   And now, in most theaters, working without a director would be a questionable and risky endeavor. 

So what does a theater director do?   Simply put: the director is the author of the experience.  A playwright authors the words in the play, but the director authors the overall production that you see onstage.  The director interprets the words given to them by the playwright, and leads a creative team of designers and actors to create a unified world onstage for those words to live within.

How does the director do this?  Well, many have different processes, particularly in the details.  But I’ll try to give a general overview of the process.  First, a director reads a play.  They find that they love this play and decide that they want to bring it to life on stage.  Either the play has been given to them by a theater, or they find a theater to produce it, and then they begin, usually with research, text analysis, and personal thought about the play.  In this time, the director searches for the main themes of the play, what they believe makes this play tick, and what it has to say to an audience.  Also, the director might search for images, music, or other works that evoke the world for them.

Then the director will start meetings with their team of designers.  Most productions have set, costume, lighting, and sound designers that will create the visual and sonic world of the play.  The director brings to them the thoughts they’ve had about the play and the ideas that might start inspiring the designers to join the director in creating the world that the director has begun to envision.  The design process then begins, a conversation that may go on for months trading images, sketches, renderings, sounds, and models back and forth until a very specific, unique world has been created for the production. 

The director also chooses the cast for the play, usually through auditions, and then rehearsals begin.  In rehearsals, the director guides the performances of the actors to keep them in a unified world, and to ensure that the story unfolds in the best way possible.  

Soon, technical rehearsals arrive, when the design and actors come together on the stage and the production as a whole is brought to life.  The director carefully guides these intense rehearsals to make the production seamless, so the characters inhabit the world around them onstage in such an effective way that there is no question that these people live in this theatrical world.   Final shifts and tweaks happen through previews until opening, when the director’s work is done, and like a proud parent they leave the production to live on without them.

Being a director, you see, holds a lot of responsibility.  A theater company entrusts artistic oversight of an entire production to a director, and while the artistic staff of a theater may visit rehearsals and make suggestions, the director is in charge of that production.  Because of this, it can be incredibly difficult to start a career as a director, as to be hired it requires a theater company to trust this person with a portion of their season.  The work of the director can often determine the success or failure of a production.  

Many young directors produce their own work, as I once did, and slowly develop relationships and a reputation through their work with other theater companies.  Most of what gets a director work is by doing good work and other people seeing it and liking it.  Because of that, less established directors work as much as they can and invite other companies to see what they are doing.  Also, an early-career director will assist more established directors, helping them learn the craft and establish relationships with companies with which they hope to someday work. 

When I graduated from college I founded a theater company with like-minded artists, while at the same time I worked in the administrative office at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and assistant directed there.  This allowed me to both work on my craft in my own right and to learn from experienced artists simultaneously.  Three years later, I went to Northwestern University and spent three years working on my MFA in directing.  Many directors these days go to graduate school and I found it invaluable at honing my craft in a focused environment under the mentorship of a great director, Anna D. Shapiro.  I learned a massive amount while in graduate school about my process, about the craft, and about art in general.   Since finishing graduate school, I have become a freelance director, working for theater companies throughout Chicago and beyond, and have been the proud recipient of some fellowships that have given me opportunities to continue learning and establishing myself in the theater community, most recently working at The Goodman Theatre as the Michael Maggio Directing Fellow. 

There are no prescribed paths for artists of any kind, and it has only been through luck, instinct, and a massive work ethic that I’ve had the great opportunities and experiences I’ve had in the theater thus far.  I’m thankful for all of them.  It is incredibly difficult to make a life out of working in the theater, so it has to be something you really feel compelled to do, something you need more than stability, comfort, or leisure. 

Even more than my choice to be a director, I believe that directing chose me.  I was always dreaming up other worlds while I was young, and when my friends and I created plays at recess I always knew how they should go and what we should do to make them work.  As a teenager, I thought I was going to be an actor, but always had a director’s eye and thought process.  I wanted to guide the entire production, I had instincts of how I saw the show working, and it always distracted me from my character.  I love mining meaning out of the text, the establishing of the style of the production, and to work with my collaborators on honing the world of the play.  And on opening night I love to stand back and watch the play live and breathe and the effect it has on an audience.  These things compel me.  This is why I’m a theater director.