Directing Theater 101: 10 Steps to Successful Productions

This guide provides regional theater companies and new directors with the knowledge and tools needed to produce successful shows. Drawing on years of experience directing and producing plays, Wilma Marcus Chandler covers such topics as how to read and analyze a script to really understand it. She guides new directors with how to visualize a show and explains how to get started, researching and thinking about concept, music, lights, sound, and costumes. Tips are provided for how to hold auditions as well as information on how to talk to the cast and crew - and how to listen. New directors will learn how to stage a play, using blocking, body movement, stage business, exits and entrances. She shares skills for preparing a production, including rehearsal techniques, time lines, budgets, royalties, and publicity. Also included is a valuable discussion on how to prepare for a career in directing.SELLING POINTS- Written for the inexperienced or young director- Focus is on developing confidence in a new director's aesthetic judgments and choices- Emphasis is on how to develop a concept for production based on understanding the text- Practical step-by-step methods for completing a production with integrity and polish- Discussion of other styles of theater providing the new director an opportunity to examine other ways of producing a play based on his/her own perceptions and interpretations of the world- Information for continuing to train - suggestions for what to read and how to think as a director.This guide provides regional theater companies and new directors with the knowledge and tools needed to produce successful shows. Drawing on years of experience directing and producing plays, Wilma Marcus Chandler covers such topics as how to read and analyze a script to really understand it. She guides new directors with how to visualize a show and explains how to get started, researching and thinking about concept, music, lights, sound, and costumes. Tips are provided for how to hold auditions as well as information on how to talk to the cast and crew - and how to listen. New directors will learn how to stage a play, using blocking, body movement, stage business, exits and entrances. She shares skills for preparing a production, including rehearsal techniques, time lines, budgets, royalties, and publicity. Also included is a valuable discussion on how to prepare for a career in directing. Read more