Directing One Notes, script

Lesson 1: Script & Aristotle

Lesson 2: Script & You

Lesson 3: Script & Space

Lesson 4: Script & Public

First, read/surf root directory direct.vtheatre.net

Second, sub-directory : 1 * 2 and etc.

Third, lessons!

Intelligence learns from its mistakes... BUT TRUE GENIUS LEARNS FROM OTHERS' MISTAKES. [ Mistakes playwrights make. Learn from the mistakes made by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Sophocles. No, I am not kidding. You should know more than them -- they lived before you, you the latest. Are you? ] Script Analysis Directory & DramLit

Links

Featured Pages: Theatre Biomechanics

Directing "silent scenes" (no words)

alone-godot06
Waiting for Godot There is no simple formula for putting on a play. Directing is about unleashing the creative energies of artist collaborators. It is providing "the passion that lights the fires," says Peter Brook.

To put simply, let them work!

Ver much like you about to let your public work. Who do you "make" (your) show? Who is working after lights in the house go down?

Remember, director is a manager.

Remember, they are your tools!

Script Analysis

Theatre Books Master Page *

What Is Dramaturgy?
PETER LANG New York Washington, D.C./ Baltimore San Francisco Bern Frankfurt am Main Berlin Vienna Paris 1995 [questia.com]

Playwright Versus Director: Authorial Intentions and Performance Interpretations by Sidney Berger, Jeane Luere; Greenwood Press, 1994 : - Part One: Theories of Authorship and Interpretation - 1: Literary Assumptions About Text - 2: Literature's New Criticism Applied to Theatre - Part Two: Remarks of Playwrights and Directors - 3: Alley Forum: Playwrights, Directors, and the Postmodern Stage - 4: Robert Anderson, Playwright - 5: Sidney Berger, Director - 6: Danny Mann, Director, and Edward Albee, Playwright - 7: Lanford Wilson, Playwright - 8: Robert Wilson, Performer, Director, Writer - 9: Jose Quintero, Director - Part Three: Tiers of Director/Playwright Interchange: Five Case Studies - 10: A "Director's Director" - 11: A Tyrant Director? - 12: A Director's Distortion of a Modern Classic: Arthur Miller's Shift in Stance - 13: A Playwright-Director Opens Up a Classic: Albee's Direction of Beckett - 14: Director, Playwright, and Cast: Caryl Churchill's Approach to Text - Part Four: Theatre Aesthetics and the Law - 15: Contractual Provisions of the Dramatists' Guild, Inc. - 16: Collaboration and American Law - Afterword

The Directorial Image: The Play and the Director by Frank McMullan; Shoe String Press, 1962 - 1: Creativity and the Director - 2: Dramatic Communication and Response - 3: Nature and Pattern of Drama - 4: Potentials of Dramatic Values - 5: Points of Focus - Directorial Image

[Critical Concepts] ***

2007/2008

lesson 1

lesson 2

lesson 3

lesson 4

Oedipus

Notes

2006: "Open Scenes"

THR413 Script Analysis
If not ehough, go to Film Directing and read pages on "scripting"!
That's right -- I can get to 1-5 sundirectories only in the Spring 2005, when I will be teaching THR331 again!
Spring 2005: I teaching THR331 again.
Many pages are updated, many new texts, many are still missing.
Vertical Analysis Follow Aristotle (Poetics): structure and texture?
[ 200x Files ]
Horizontal Analysis (plot)
Actor' 5W's
"The difference between story and plot lies in the conceptual distinction between actions and events. In constructing a story, actions are what characters do, events are what happen to characters. Therefore, the story consists of the series of actions performed by the characters, while the plot consists of the series of events that happen to the characters." Analysis Page Film-North.

Meyerhold:

from Francis Hodge Play Directing : Analysis, Communication, Style

Seven Major Areas of Play-Analysis :

1) Given Circumstances, the foundation of the playscript
1. Geographical location--the exact place (which includes climate)
2. Date -- year, season, time of day
3. Economic environment--class level, state of wealth or poverty
4. Political environment
5. Social environment
6. Regious environment

They are deeply rooted in Previous Actions and the resulting polar attitude at the beginning of the play
Previous Actions
Polar Attitude

2) Dialogue, the Facade of the Playscript :
Dialogue Is Action ; Dialogue Is in Verse or Prose ; Dialogue Is Inner Language

3) Dramatic Action : the clash of forces in a play--the continuous conflict between characters
Acting is the how ; action is the what.
All action Is Reciprocal : All action forces counter-action, or action in two directions with adjustments in between
The Divisions of Action : French Scenes
Finding and Labeling the Action : Use Active Verbs
A shames ; B ignores ; A pleads ; B softens ; A begs; B rejecys

4) Characters evolve through Actions

5) Ideas

6) Tempos

7) Moods

Sound and Silence

Directing is communicating : Artistic Leadership

The Director Is an Image-Maker

Improvisation : A Technique In Director-Actor Communication

Organic Blocking : A Technique of Communication

The Groundplan : the Basic Tool in Director-Actor Communication Antoni Libera: Beckett's way of directing consists of the following elements:

1. Approaching a play as if it were a musical score
2. Bringing out the rhythm of the text
3. A precise designing of the stage movements, as if in a ballet
4. Pacing the acting and speaking
5. Bringing out comic elements : a mix of Irish humour, silent moves type slapstick, music hall routines
6. Bringing out sadness and lyricism… no black gloom.
7. The spirit of German romanticism (note the Caspar Friedrich paintings reproduced below)
http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellpatke/en3268/en3268_lec_11_beckett.htm

Questions

see DOC directory (handouts)

* GODOT.06: Doing Beckett => main stage Theatre UAF Spring 2006 *

Plays Online:

http://www.geneseo.edu/%7Eblood/Director1.html Into Lecture Notes *

Next: script directory notes

@2001-2005 film-north *