To Direct (v.)
By Daniel Stallings, East Sierra Branch
To direct. I styled my title to show it’s a verb. An action. To direct is not a passive state. There seems to be a growing kernel of belief that directors are passive creatures or, even worse, not necessary in the creation of theatre or film or television. What do directors even do? You can see the actor. You can hear the music. You can see the set, the costumes, the hair, the makeup, the lighting. Where is the directing?
I am a theatre director. I direct. I also babysit, shepherd, keep, dream, mediate, choreograph, interface, resolve, host, and execute.
And if I do my job right, my work can be nearly invisible.
With theatre, my job is to create a simulacrum of life in an invented space. Characters must behave with a form of authenticity. Even if they are fantasy characters, we, as humans, need to find kinship with these voices. And to those who may wonder why actors can’t figure it out for themselves, I’ll leave you with this.
Actors can’t see themselves act onstage.
My job is to be the stand-in for the audience. I am their eyes and ears from all perspectives. My job is to watch the interplay between performer and audience, performer and background, performer and technical elements. I am trying to discover if they all coalesce into a finished product, into a great show that is harmonious to watch. Does the position of that set piece interfere with the sightline to the actor at this crucial moment? If I told the act to cheat out more to the house on this line, does that improve the experience for the audience? I move seats constantly throughout the house at rehearsal to see if the audience is getting more or less the same experience. We try to give a great show to everyone.
The director is responsible for choreographing how the actors move through space. It’s not just dance numbers that need choreography. Every action done onstage needs someone to design it. I walk through actors on how they want their characters to move and sit and gesture. I plan all the blocking—the choreography of where, when, and how actors move onstage during scenes—to broadcast the right mood, keep sightlines open so the audience can see as much as possible, and to illustrate and highlight key moments in the story.
I am also the steward of the script, protecting the author’s words and intentions. My job goes bigger as I am also the united voice and vision of the production. Like any group project, someone should lead to help blend the disparate work ethics and philosophies. I design the entire tone of the play—what I want audiences to feel and what I want to celebrate in the script. Every production needs that one voice to help all the unique voices of the show work together in a single harmony. That is the director.
I direct, a verb.