Notes from making a new play.
When telling actors to be present, you also have to practice being present.
Don’t lose sight of drama (an exciting, emotional, or unexpected series of events or set of circumstances) in the practice of playing.
Let your directors’ vision come from the questions you have about the play. This will strengthen your relationship with the piece and the playwright.
Make questions - not suggestions. Tell your stories as questions.
Bring transparency into the room your honesty builds trust.
In playmaking instead of using “should” replace it with “could.”
Empower all to bring everyday inspiration to the room. You’ll be surprised by the gifts that will be found on the walk to rehearsal. (Putting cinnamon in my coffee inspired me to add a dust effect to the play.)
Leave the rehearsal room at the end of the night when you are tired. Leave the frustration of the discoveries not made that day inside the room, process possible solutions on the way home. It’s okay to not always figure it out in the room.
Practice the discipline of being non-perspective in your questions to the playwright.
Everything the playwright says is an inspiration. (Mostly everything.)
The intuition you feel in creating should be celebrated yet not always used. Write down that thought and use it for another project.
Intimacy is more than physical. Intimacy is words. Intimacy is eye contact. Don’t be afraid of intimacy.
Live inside the limitations. Live within the limitations. Live around the limitations. Then you’ll reanalyze what are limitations.
Intention matters. The impulses that are brought into the room will bring life to the characters. Make space for intention.
Be specific in your metaphor.
Spend time with everyone beyond the rehearsal room (go to an art museum together.) Talk about the show through other art mediums.
Give the writer space to write the play, they too are figuring it out.
Find time earlier to sit down with the writer and ask them what they think the show could like in a dream production with no limitations.
Don’t lose sight of what you want to say as a director through the work you are making. Investigate that invitation.
Make the world of the play one that people want to stay in when you have to walk away.
Let tempo inform the text. Let the opposition of tempo recharge the text, then find the place where it feels strongest for the piece.
Don’t forget that you are interwoven in the legacy of this piece, make it one you want to be remembered for.
It is never your job to push the playwright. Meet the script where it is at.
