PART II: DIRECTOR ISSUES
1. With what does the director begin the process of producing a new play? How much discussion with producer or with playwright occurs? With well-established plays (either recent or those in the public domain), how much will previous productions influence the present staging?
2. What or who determines the possible style of production--the use of conventional backdrops, sets, props, or the use of a more abstract and stylistic setting? How much might your choice hinge on whether the playscript was a new or an established production?
3. What or who determines a script's performance tempo--its "flow"? Is it the script or the actors or the director who slows down or speeds up the tempo? To what extent do actors set the tempo naturally by picking up cues, reacting to others' words or actions, slowing down or speeding up?
4. How can the director amplify or modify the author's stage directions for setting, lighting, costumes, properties, characters?
5. Does the director need a scale model of the set before rehearsals begin? before blocking? What use is made of a scale model in rehearsals, before actual set construction is completed?
6. How much can directors add to sound in staging--wind? storm? slammed doors? weeping? screaming? incidental music? an extra waltz for the dance scene in Williams The Glass Menagerie?
7. Given a choice of facilities (stages) for a new play, how would the director determine the form (type) of stage it should have--traditional, arena, or thrust? Would aesthetics or economics or previous staging determine the choice? (At the Alley's arena staging of Angels in America, the director chose an arena staging though the play's Broadway premiere had been on a proscenium stage.)
8. Casting: What role does the director play in selecting the cast? Is it a shared function with producer and playwright?
9. Is it actually possible at auditions to select actors who will fill the script's roles exactly--or is it a long shot? Does a director (often or seldom) need to replace his first choices? How soon might the director be able to realize that his choice had been unfortunate? ( Alan Schneider, in Entrances, wrote of the tact and trouble that came to him from unfortunate choices of his or of producer/playwright input into casting.)
10. How is the choice of the specific play to be produced usually made? Is it based on budget, on projected audience, on the theatre organization's purpose?
11. Does the financial backer have a part in the decision? In regional theatre, do the artistic director and the managing director have total input?
12. Directors and playwrights frequently resort to the same actors over the years--Mr. Albee has used George Grizzard, Kathleen Butler, Jessica Tandy; Tennessee Williams often used Colleen Dewhurst. Why might a director (and playwright) often choose to work with certain actors again and again? Is it totally from the actors' artistic presence, or perhaps from familiarity with the actors' learning style, concentration span, readiness to accept suggestion (direction?), responsibility, similar concepts of what theatre can or should be, or other considerations? Would it be a money matter?
13. Are the titles "designer" and "draftsman" equally accurate for the responsibility of the persons holding the positions? Do the titles connote the same level of creativity? At what point in production do designers (lighting, sound, costume, set) enter staging?

The Director's Interaction with the Theatre Team
1. 1. What major differences in the sets of circumstances at commercial, regional, or academic theatres might influence the selection of the par- ticular play and the nature of its production (re: size of budget, theatre space, audience complexion)?
2. How much do differences in time allotted for development of script and for the projected run of the play affect the director's necessary adjustments to staging?
3. Would the director be tied more noticeably to text at professional venues (as in New York City, where the playwright might often be in attendance during negotiations and rehearsals) than at regional or academic theatres?
4. At different types of theatre, are actors usually similar in what they consider appropriate or inappropriate regard for text (re: "duty" to script versus freer interpretation)?
5. At regional or academic venues, can the director make necessary economic adjustments or modifications to scripted stage directions (omit brief lines or scenes) without violating the authority of the text?
6. Is casting handled similarly at various venues, with the same intricacies of contracts or mixes of Equity and non-Equity actors?
7. Is the director's length of commitment to performance after opening somewhat uniform at all venues?
8. Do actors' expertise levels vary discernibly, so that time and extent of direction are factors in the organization's selection of a play and in the probability of its success?
9. Does a director need to be a teacher at one level more than at another, helping actors with tempo, focus, climax, perception of author's characters, and embodiment of that perception for audiences?
10. Does blocking offer more challenge (opportunity for innovation) at one category of theatre than another? How much do factors like size or sophistication of the facility (stage) and the nature of the lighting or of the acoustics predetermine the producer's and director's staging options, complicate their jobs, or limit their artistic drive?
11. How does the availability of support staff (management, technicians, designers) and the extent of consultation with them on set, lighting, sound, and costuming differ at particular venues?
12. With regard to marketing, public relations, and other business matters, to what extent would differences in their handling at a venue alter the preparation of the chosen play?

PART III: PLAYWRIGHT ISSUES
1. Stage directions were often sparse in scripts from past centuries, perhaps because playwrights were expected and welcomed at rehearsals. Today, with playwrights less often present at rehearsals, their scripts tend toward more-explicit stage directions. How might the tendency toward more-explicit stage directions affect our directors, actors, designers?
2. Today, how do playwrights see their role in rehearsals? How far into rehearsal might the playwright wish to attend? How much revision of text would be acceptable with a playwright present?
3. Should today's directors regard scripted stage directions as fixed components of text or as the playwright's "suggestions" for interpreting and performing the script? From the phrase "artistic integrity in production," what might playwrights expect from directors in addition to close adherence to text?
4. After a new play's premiere and first run, might the playwright less often than before approve modifications by the director and team for subsequent productions?
5. How closely do playwrights work with directors and designers on setting? Could a director or designer shift a scene's backdrop and fixed stage pieces from a realistic to an abstract style--or from a simple setting to a busy, involved one?
6. For actors' delivery of dialogue, to what extent are a playright's scripted cues intended as aids for actors? How much might an actor's disregard of scripted cues in favor of his own subjective approach to vocal tone, body language, even dialogue itself, lose the essence of the playwright's intended dramatic experience for the audience? (Can actors be inventive and still simulate and embody the role scripted by the playwright?)
7. With blocking, how vital is the playwright's scripted intention for positioning actors? Can the director move an actor downstage nearer the footlights or further upstage than the text indicates? Would the shifts mar the playwright's intended stage picture?
8. Can stage business or bustling activity not prescribed in the text take away from what the playwright intended for a scene, perhaps spoiling the silent moment during which the audience was to be deeply reflective? Could such shifts mar the rhythm of the scripted lines?
9. Theatre philosophy through the ages has said that playwrights believe that theatre's ultimate worth rests in its arousing and/or redeeming effect on the audience (re: Artaud's wish that it "drain abscesses collectively"). Which elements of production (designers' settings, actors' delivery of lines, or directors' focus on rhythm, sound, and movement) most often fulfill a dramatist's wish to arouse and/or redeem the audience?

PART IV: DESIGNER ISSUES
1. Is it possible to give designers carte blanche with design, or do the director and playwright usually have their visions of the setting, lighting, sound, and costuming pretty much in hand at the outset of production sessions?
2. 2. How much does the playwright's script (through its dialogue, stage directions, action) tell the designer about the appearance the set and costumes should take--whether they should be complex and elaborate or plain and simple?
3. If abstraction rather than realism is the director's choice in staging style, can a designer's costuming or scenery still have a dynamic part in furthering the playwright's intent for his script's staging?
4. Would a designer's work be basically the same for a play staged on a proscenium stage as on an arena stage? Would adjustments be easy or difficult?
5. How interrelated are the single components (light, costuming, color, sound, shape) of the plays design? To what extent does each depend upon the other? For example, how might lighting and costuming be interrelated?
6. Today, scenic design can be realistic and solid, abstract and fluid, or a combination of the two. When might a set designer suggest adjustments to a director to enhance or adjust the scripted style?
7. How can lighting serve artistic purposes without becoming a "spectacle" that detracts from the unity of the whole staging?
8. How much does the size of the production's budget limit the designers' tasks? How much can a designer use imagination to solve budget difficulties in staging?
9. In essence, does the designer serve the playwright rather than the director? Can dialogue between designer, director, and playwright help correlate design intents?

PART V: ACTOR ISSUES
1. What assists an actor most in making inferences about the playwright's characters and their situations, expectations, traits, standards?
2. Does aid in apprehending the character's nature appear explicitly in the script? in its subtext? from the director? from the interaction on stage during rehearsal? from the actmr's imagination?
3. How does the actor decide which actions in the play are major, to be emphasized more strongly than others? (Does the feeling of priority [need for emphasis] come when actors first read the play or first interact with others, or when the designers fix the lighting on them [or on some stage property]?) Or does this sense of priority come through the director's placement of actor in relation to audience, or to someone or something else?
4. How does interaction with the director or with other actors assist each actor in noting changes in mood, tempo, character--or in the play itself?
5. What expedients help actors "get into a role"? Do they devise aids like eye contact and gestures (shrugs, nods of the head, facial expres- sions) on their own as they read and memorize lines in the script, or a bit later, with help from the theatre team?
6. How does an actor stay "in character" from start to finish of each separate performance so that the viewers perceive the actor as the character? How do actors maintain the integrity (consistency and continuity) of their characters throughout a long run of the show?
7. From whom do actors seek help if they think the lines they must speak don't ring true to them--sound unnatural or awkward on their tongue--or if the lines don't give them sufficient clues to the person's character, style, and thoughts?
8. How much should actors know about their character? Should they know as much as the director knows--and even more?
9. How can an actor keep a role "fresh"? ( Stanislavsky [ ] spoke of the need before each performance "not only of a physical make-up but of a spiritual make-up" [].)