The Art of the Theatre, Craig: When he (the stage-director) interprets the plays of the dramatist by means of his actors, his scene-painters, and his other craftsmen, then he is a craftsman – a master craftsman; when he will have mastered the use of actions, words, line, colour, and rhythm, then he may become an artist. Then we shall no longer need the assistance of the playwright – for our art will then be self-reliant. (148) StageMatrix: Directing

2008 :

... 2009 : Is it possible that now after UAF I will do my textbook?
A book.
What kind?
I do not know.
I still thinking about it.
Not many years are left -- and many other projects to do, including directing.
There is still a chance.
... antohin.wordpress.com [Theatre LUL]

Theatre in Ethiopia -- updates in Total Director

and

stagematrix.vtheatre.net -- new theory

Will see.

Anatoly A.

teatr.us : 2009 and After

"Every child is an artist. The problem is to remain an artist after he grows up." -Picasso "The Stage Team" -- no, I am not get myself in the same trap, as in film Directing (FM) talking about director and writer, director and actor, director and dsigners, production cycles, no, thank you very much, I will write about director and director, director himself! Meyer-Stagematrix

Fundamentals of Stage Direction

Concept

Pre-production

Dramatic and Visual Composition

Scene Breakdown [ scene study SS ]

Chronotope

Floor (ground) plan

Script Analysis Directory & DramLit 2008 -- ?

Featured Pages: Biomechanics DIRECTORS ON DIRECTING by Toby Cole, Macmillan Pub. 0023233001 $64

Service Pages:

Assignments, appendix, books, biblio, dictionary, directory, exercises, links, list, new, outline, contents, popup window, references, tests

Summary

I keep my webpages for my notes, preparing for classes. The pages are in addition to your textbook and my lectures in class.

Questions

Film?

The Possessed 2003

Notes

2004-2004 UAF season * * Acting I : BioMethod * Acting II : Biomechanics * Acting III : Method ** Stage Directions : Stagematrix ** Film Directing : Filmmaking for Actors ** Playscript Analysis : Grammar of Drama 2005: in addition to master-teachers (Meyerhold and Stanislavsky) there are several "guest-artists" -- Grotowski, Artaud, Brecht, Beckett. This course is an orientation to play direction and covers all the basic skills, requirements, and responsibilities of stage directing. Topics and areas explored are: relationships with designers, playwrights, stage-managers, producers, actors, and dramaturgs. The course also explores and puts into practical demonstration; script analysis and interpretation, blocking technique, principles of stage movement and effective stage pictures, directorial concept and realization of the text. Other topics include: auditioning, casting, rehearsal technique and the final rendition of a production. Dramatic Text: The author's written text - the script - sometimes further defined as that text spoken by actors during a production. Performance text: "all that is made visible or audible on stage" [Pavis, 1992 Crossroads, 25], and includes the dramatic text, the vocal delivery of that text, physicality, facial expression, the use of mask, light, movement, the use of space, costume and so on. Famed director Sir Tyrone Guthrie has cautioned that "the only way to learn how to direct a play, is ... to get a group of actors simple enough to allow you to let you direct them, and direct." If "dramatic text" (play), acting (performance) and mise-en-scene are the means of directing the public, what is Part IV? Genre and Time! Directing chronotope is this special subjective universe, where all (writer, actor, director and spectator) experience drama together... Another note: director "acts" and actor "directs" -- what a paradox? Perhaps. This is why I have such subtitle as "Method Acting for Directors" and "Directing for Actors" -- this is one process as far as spectator is concerned. It is only in the world of profession, we separate what is always together in this amaturish soul of our audience... Spectator, like a child, does not "take apart" his dramatic living, that's why we have "critics" -- what's why spectator resists any analysis, he is by nature is inufying force. After we finished the "cooking" we have to hide the labor, we must keep the kitchen away from the dinning table, we should left them, audience, alone -- to enjoy themselves. We pretend that there is no craft, no recipies, no control and manipulation -- we have to let them feel in control, it's their dream now. They should feel themselves CREATORS, authors, owners of their theatre experience! I hope that part V (Showcases) could demonstrate this process, when the preparation cycles become invisible, leave public free for one (focused and intense) and one only expirience -- of making stories in their minds and hearts! But is the subject of the other web-project -- The Book of Spectator! Well, this is the time to leave webpages and get back to real pages (books); the web structure becomes outdated at some point, when you want plain texts (text-only) without the hyper-links and pix... I will try to do it in filmplus.org/d (2005). Wait! First, I have to bring together film and theatre directing! 2005 updates: Small Chekhov Fall * "Four Farces & One Funeral" -- Chekhov.05 Chekhov's one-acts are updated -- The Bear, The Proposal (1st act -- Oh, Love!), Wedding, Tobacco (Act II -- Ah, Marriage!), but I'm still working on the "funeral" (Last Day of Anton Chekhov). mini-chekhov I am teaching DramLit -- groups.yahoo.com/group/dramlit (subscribe) and see THR215 for subjects, topics, titles. Spring 2006 -- Waiting for Godot, Beckett -- new pages ( see shows ) * Theatre Chronology * The Theatre Team: Playwright, Producer, Director, Designers, and Actors. Contributors: Jeane Luere - editor, Sidney Berger - editor. Publisher: Greenwood Press. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 1998. (quotes) * Directors on Directing: A Source Book of the Modern Theater by Helen Krich Chinoy, Toby Cole; Bobbs-Merrill, 1963 - 1: The Emergence of the Director - 2: Vision and Method - 3: The Director at Work ... Less than a hundred years ago the director was only an ideal projected by disgruntled critics of the chaotic Victorian theater. He did not even have a name, for the terms "director," "rigisseur," and "metteur en scčne" had barely begun to acquire their present theatrical meaning. He was imaged as a "disciplinarian" who would superintend the "whole conduct of a piece and exact a rigid but a just decorum." He was conceived as a super stage manager who would be "at one and the same time a poet, an antiquarian and a costumier." When the director did finally appear toward the end of the nineteenth century, he filled so pressing a need that he quickly pre-empted the hegemony that had rested for centuries with playwrights and actors. Working behind the scenes, the director stamped his individuality on a rich and varied international stage. By blending diverse arts into a single organic image he gave form to the complex modern theater, just as the poet had given shape to the Elizabethan stage by words and the actor had crystallized the theatrical idea of the eighteenth century by his personal magnetism. The appearance of the director ushered in a new and original theatrical epoch. His experiments, his failures, and his triumphs set and sustained the stage. ... The Language(s) of the Show (The Book of Spectator) Tao: If you want to become whole, first let yourself become broken. If you want to become straight, first let yourself become twisted. If you want to become full, first let yourself become empty. If you want to become new, first let yourself become old. 2007 Spring -- class, Fall -- Stoppard ? ... PS? I do not plan to make new pages in this directory, even if I will be teaching directing in Ethiopia [LUL]. No more "formal" courses American-style, apprenticeship. Where this type will be developed online? I do not know. ANT

Theatre Directing

... directing is easy. What do I do? I watch and I see. "Why don't you move to the left a little bit," I say. Or "Stop before you crossing the stage, please"... What is that? I didn't write the play, I didn't make costumes or set. I do not act. Why do they all listen to me? What do I know that they all need so much?

This is the main subject of this book -- the secrets. Three Texts

StageMatrix

2004: -1: The Emergence of the Director -2: Vision and Method -3: The Director at Work

I do not write much about directing the text, because I have the SCRIPT analysis webpages, and I do not talk about directing actors eighter, because it is covered in Method Acting and Biomechanics. Not much about the public, because it is in the Spectator directory... What I want to focus on is Time-Space directing...
I will be teaching Fundamentals of Directing in the Spring 2002 -- and will fix the pages before that time (ruined by theGlobe's death). And of course, read the directories I mentioned above.
PREFACE
This is the only stage directing class we have: FunDaMentals of Direction
Directing One: Text
Director & Text
Script Analysis for Directors
Directing Two: Actors
Director & Actor(s)
Read Acting One and Method and Biomechanics directories.
Directing Three: Stage
Chronotope: Time-Space directing
See Theatre Theory pages on "chronotope"
Directing Four: Public
Director as Spectator
PS

Stanislavsky and directing? I better stay away from it -- directing actors, yes, read the acting directories... Meyerhold-Stagematrix-Theatre-w/Anatoly

direct.vtheatre.net Spring 2005:

Our main character (hero) is Meyerhold ("Meyer" as friends called him) in my Biomechanics directories goes under the name "Master" [ from time to time you would see "Teacher" (Stanislavsky) poping up ]. "Master" (above) was the fist (at least in Russia) who understood the profession of stage director.
I never met him, he died before I was born (shot by Stalin); and I don't think that I like him (you'll see why). I write about his ideas, which I believe work for theatre. I use them in my directing and classes. Yes, it's my interpretation of the theatrical concepts of M (Meyer or Master for short). Does it really matter who, where, when, why and what introduced the idea, as long as it work for you? Mister M, Mr. A (Anatoly, me) or Mr. S (Stanislavsky)? If the stage concepts in the book could help you -- don't worry about the source: use them!
Master: Anatoly?
A: Yes, I am here, sir.
Master: Good. Why don't you shot up and get to the point -- directing.
A: Yes, Master. Part I -- the plays. For a long time I called it "texts" (the other still do). But if SHOW is a combination of performance "texts," we should call scripts "pre-texts"... Right? But the final dramatic experience takes place within the spectator's mind, heart and soul; should we call dramatic writings "pre-pre-texts"?
M: I like it! Where did you get it?
A: Semiotics, sir. Studying of signs. Stage statements in stage laguages...
M: The science? Go on.
...

NB

This directory has four parts/subdirectories: the new pages will be there (if it's about play analysis for directors -- part I and so on). Assignments, tests -- in addition to the Directing ONLINE @ Yahoo. New forum at Google groups for Spring 2007...

[subscribe to the forums]

Hamlet-Director

ACT III
SCENE II        A hall in the castle.

        [Enter HAMLET and Players]

HAMLET  Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to
        you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,
        as many of your players do, I had as lief the
        town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
        too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;
        for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,
        the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget
        a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it
        offends me to the soul to hear a robustious
        periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to
        very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who
        for the most part are capable of nothing but
        inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such
        a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it
        out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

First Player    I warrant your honour.

HAMLET  Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion
        be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the
        word to the action; with this special o'erstep not
        the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is
        from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the
        first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the
        mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,
        scorn her own image, and the very age and body of
        the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone,
        or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful
        laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the
        censure of the which one must in your allowance
        o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be
        players that I have seen play, and heard others
        praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely,
        that, neither having the accent of Christians nor
        the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
        strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of
        nature's journeymen had made men and not made them
        well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

First Player    I hope we have reformed that indifferently with
us,
        sir.

HAMLET  O, reform it altogether. And let those that play
        your clowns speak no more than is set down for them;
        for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to
        set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh
        too; though, in the mean time, some necessary
        question of the play be then to be considered:
        that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition
        in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.

        [Exeunt Players]

Next: Intro

I better make a new page, like in film analysis The MASTERS. And "Russian Directors"? Tairov, Vakhtangov and others...

... Grotowski, Brecht... Contemporary directors? [ list ]

How much History and Theory of directing this "Fundamentals" class can take?

....

Perhaps, introduction should be in reversed chronology; from the present to past. They, students are postmodern creatures... Montage, film, games, collage, and so on -- their reality.

... Spring 2007 -- pomo.vtheatre.net : but how to intoduce it?

... Everything that doesn't fit, I am moving to filmplus.org/thr "theatre theory"!

2002

Focus on comedy? Read preface for reading from the textbook "Directors on Directing"! Part One is required. Since I'm directing Dangerous Liaisons, use this directory as a showcase in directing.

Well, well, here we go -- Godot. To talk about Stoppard we need to talk about Pinter and his father -- Beckett.

A few words about navigation and the road signs. (I keep working on it!)

The banners and logos you see on my pages:

bookmark! [ main banner for filmplus.org (Film-North) ]

FNeye
[ for Mining Film (links & books) ]

MovieTheatre
[ glossaries and dictionaries ]

fnScreen
[ film list-forum ]

Cinema
[ Film Analysis pages (class) ]

Flash banner "film.vtheatre.net" takes you to Film Analysis pages.

Popup alert here and there is for my film email antoh@lycos.com

New big and tall popup windows slideshow select pages (like the one that came out with this page).

Well, this is in theory, of course. Other signs and symbols are self-explanatory: film books and etc.

POV
[ POV, nonfiction pages ]

and the Film600 directory -- flash banners "Wrong Theories + Bad Subjects" [ film as philosophy ]

Film Directing: filmplus.org/film
logo +
flash banner "Directing 101"

200X class Aesthetics ("Arts Through Film"):
logo (small and big)...

Confusing? I pay for Yahoo and Tripod -- and they gave new, shorter domain names:

GeoAlaska = vtheatre.net

Film-North = filmplus.org

Oh, yeah! Virtual Theatre! Several symbols, depending of what aspect of VT is in focus -- stage, film, web and etc.

[ what does it? I don't know. Dancing! ]

THEATRE w/Anatoly:

Acting One: act.vtheatre.net

biomechanics.vtheatre.net

Method Acting: method.vtheatre.net

Script Analysis: script.vtheatre.net

Theatre Theory: filmplus.org/thr [ there is a big logo with the naked girl "Theatre Academy & Platonic Girls" ]

Books directories. Film : filmplus.org/books... Easy to remember?
Theatre: vtheatre.net/books -- you see the logo in the right table (not everywhere).

Writing: write.vtheatre.net (Russian)

Plays: plays.vtheatre.net -- did you see this flash banner? Well, this directory for my new plays-in-progress. In Russian. You are in English directory: filmplus.org/plays (click -- and you will get to the title page).

Web: web.vtheatre.net and the flash banner with the same URL. Wait! SHOWS: shows.vtheatre.net -- no logo? I can't believe it!

If you see my photo -- it must something about me: resume, bio, cv... [ one day I will make it better! ]

@2001-2005 film-north *

Intelligence learns from its mistakes… …BUT TRUE GENIUS LEARNS FROM OTHERS' MISTAKES.

intro