The director's role in theatre, including the development of a directorial concept, the rehearsal process, working with actors and designers, and the major directorial traditions

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to know the director's role: how a directorial concept is developed, how rehearsal is structured, and how the director works with actors and designers. Strong answers describe specific directorial processes and engage with the major directorial traditions.

The answer

What a director does

A director holds the artistic vision for a production. The director:

• Reads and interprets the play.
• Develops a directorial concept.
• Casts the production.
• Leads the rehearsal process.
• Makes design and staging decisions.
• Shapes the performance through notes and adjustments.
• Opens the production.

The director is the single artistic authority during rehearsal. Designers, dramaturgs and actors contribute substantially, but the director's job is to coordinate the contributions into a unified production.

The modern director's role developed in the late nineteenth century with Saxe-Meiningen (Duke George II of Saxe-Meiningen, who toured a meticulously rehearsed company across Europe from 1874), Andre Antoine in Paris (Theatre Libre, from 1887), and Konstantin Stanislavski at the Moscow Art Theatre (from 1898). Before this, theatre was typically actor-managed; the modern director-as-artistic-author is roughly 140 years old.

Developing the directorial concept

A directorial concept is the interpretation the director brings to the play. It might include:

A setting

The play might be set in its original period or transposed. Hamlet set in 1900 Vienna, in 1960s Cuba, in contemporary corporate America, or in its original Elsinore. The setting changes meaning.

A central question

What is the play really about, in this production? Hamlet about indecision, about political legitimacy, about grief, about madness. The central question shapes every decision.

A tonal register

Comic, tragic, satirical, ceremonial, naturalistic, stylised. The register shapes design and performance.

A theatrical form

Realist, Brechtian, physical, choric, immersive. The form shapes every choice.

A relationship to the audience

Direct address, fourth wall, immersive, site-specific. The relationship shapes spatial decisions.

The concept is not a gimmick. The strongest concepts emerge from sustained engagement with the play and find an interpretation the play actually supports. Concepts imposed onto the play despite the play's resistance produce muddled productions.

Casting

The director casts the production in collaboration with the producer, the artistic director and (in major companies) a casting director. Casting decisions consider:

• Whether the actor can play the role (age range, technical demands, voice, body, presence).
• Whether the actor fits the production's concept (a Brechtian production needs actors comfortable with epic-theatre conventions; a realist production needs naturalistic actors).
• Whether the ensemble works together.
• Whether scheduling and budget allow.

Auditions involve the actor reading material from the play, sometimes improvising or doing physical work. The director makes the offer through the producer.

The rehearsal process

A typical professional rehearsal runs four to eight weeks. Different directors structure differently, but a common pattern moves through these phases.

Week 1: Readthrough and table work

The full cast reads the play together. The director discusses the concept and the central questions. Designer presentations may happen. Initial character and scene discussions.

Week 1 to 2: Table work

Detailed scene-by-scene discussion. The text is examined line by line for intentions, subtext, structure. Some directors stay in table work longer (Brecht's Berliner Ensemble was famous for weeks of table work); others move to standing more quickly.

Week 2 to 4: Blocking

Standing the play. Where everyone moves, when, with what objects. The stage manager records all blocking.

Week 3 to 5: Scene work

Refining scenes. Working on specific moments. Trying alternative choices. Building character. Adding voice and physical work.

Week 5 to 7: Runs

Full runs of the play. Notes after each run. Refinement and consolidation.

Week 7 to 8: Technical rehearsals

Set is installed. Lights and sound are rigged. Technical cues are sequenced. The cast adjusts to the actual stage.

Final week: Dress rehearsals

Full runs in costume with all elements. Final director notes. Press night opens.

Working with actors

The director shapes the cast's performance across rehearsal through:

Notes

Spoken or written observations on what is working and what needs adjustment. Strong notes are specific (not "do it better" but "land the third line of the speech harder, then take a longer pause before the next").

Exercises

Targeted exercises that produce a quality the director wants in the performance. Trust exercises before an intimate scene. Status exercises before a power dynamic.

Improvisation

Off-text improvisation around the situation of the scene. Reveals what the actors know and do not know about their characters.

Demonstration

Sometimes a director demonstrates what they want. Use sparingly; demonstrating can lead actors to imitate rather than to make their own choices.

Questions

"What does your character want here?" "What just happened before this scene?" "Why does she say it that way?" Questions push actors to think rather than to be told.

Working with designers

The director works with each designer in their specialty. Typical interactions:

Initial concept meetings

Director and designers discuss the production's central ideas before specific design work begins.

Design presentations

Designers present drafts and concepts. The director responds. Designs are revised.

Approvals

The director approves designs before they go to construction.

Tech

The director and designers integrate the technical elements during technical rehearsals.

Press night

Designers attend opening; the director credits the design work in the curtain call or programme.

Major directorial traditions

Several directorial traditions shape contemporary practice:

Konstantin Stanislavski (1863 to 1938)

Moscow Art Theatre. Stanislavski's "system" centred psychological realism, given circumstances, and the actor's commitment to the imagined situation. The foundation of modern realist directing.

Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874 to 1940)

Russian. Meyerhold's biomechanics treated the body as the primary instrument of acting. Stylised, theatricalist, anti-realist.

Bertolt Brecht (1898 to 1956)

Berlin and exile. Brecht's epic theatre method treats the production as social commentary. The director foregrounds the play's politics through verfremdung.

Peter Brook (1925 to 2022)

English director, later Paris-based. Brook's The Empty Space (1968) is the canonical modern statement of directing as artistic discipline. His productions ranged from Marat/Sade (1964) through The Mahabharata (1985).

Joan Littlewood (1914 to 2002)

Theatre Workshop. Ensemble-based political directing.

Robert Wilson (born 1941)

American. Avant-garde, formalist, image-based directing. Einstein on the Beach (1976, with Philip Glass).

Anne Bogart (born 1951)

American. The SITI Company. The Viewpoints (with Tina Landau) is her contribution to directorial method.

Katie Mitchell (born 1964)

English. Naturalist of a particularly rigorous kind. Detailed table work, integrated design, often female-centred.

Simon Stone (born 1984)

Australian, now Europe-based. Free adaptations of classics (The Wild Duck, Yerma, The Bacchae). His work splits opinion but has been internationally influential.

Australian directors

Major Australian directors of recent decades include John Bell (Bell Shakespeare, founded 1990), Neil Armfield (Belvoir, 1994 to 2010), Robyn Nevin (multiple companies), Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton (STC, 2008 to 2012), Eamon Flack (Belvoir, 2016 to present), Wesley Enoch (Queensland Theatre, 2010 to 2015), Sarah Goodes, Lee Lewis, Kate Champion, Imara Savage and many others. Each works in a distinctive idiom.

How directing connects to HSC Drama

The Group Performance is collectively directed by the ensemble, but the directorial vocabulary applies. The Individual Project Performance is rehearsed under a director or teacher. The Critical Analysis Individual Project sometimes engages with directorial process as a research topic.

Section II essays on Studies in Drama and Theatre electives often engage with the work of specific directors (Brecht, Lecoq-trained directors, contemporary practitioners). Section III essays on Australian Drama and Theatre engage with the productions of major Australian directors.