The Real Skills You Should Look For in a Stage Director
Have you wondered about the real skills you should look for in a director for the stage?
When I was twenty-four years old, I fell into directing.
At the time, I was part of a blossoming community theater who produced monster seasons each year. Not only that, but they produced wonderful productions of shows such as South Pacific, The Music Man, Macbeth, The Odd Couple, etc. It was exciting!
Next show of the season was The Miracle Worker. The president of the company called asking, “There is no one to direct The Miracle Worker. We think you’d do a great job. Would you be willing to head it up?”
Gulping, I said yes.
That was the beginning of my directing journey. Now nearly forty years later, I’ve directed over 250 plays and musicals with adults and children alike. Whew!
The Real Skills You Should Look For in a Stage Director
Truly, I have a perfect temperament for directing– natural born leader, charismatic, creative, inspiring and encouraging.
Luckily, I attended Stephen College in Columbia, Missouri and we trained as actors and technical theater positions. I have plenty of experience as a property mistress, costumer, box office, house management, set construction and so forth.
There have been many times I’ve attended a production and wondered who directed it, because the show appears disorganized. You know what I mean–one costume is fabulous while the next is from a different time period. Or the staircase piece is magnificent, but the basic set looks unfinished. In community theater, it is not uncommon for volunteers to be doing everything–performing and building the set. That’s not a negative, but a positive in my book.
(Don’t know much about community theater? Check out my post– Are You Missing These Kind of People in Your Life?)
When directing, I require my casts to put in some time building the set or helping sew costumes or gathering props. I think it helps them to see that every aspect is important to a production. You’ll see me there helping, too.
The Real Skills You Should Look For in a Stage Director
What are the skills a stage director needs? I was looking around the internet and stumbled upon this page from Berkley University which states,
“Successful directors possess a large suite of interpersonal skill, including personal and artistic sensitivity, aesthetic acuity, excellent communication and organization, and the confidence to lead and inspire others through a difficult and unpredictable process. They are superb multitaskers and steady as a rock in the face of adversity.
While not all directors are great collaborators, all must understand how to facilitate the collaborative process and synthesize the efforts of large creative teams. Finally, it’s vital that directors possess the ability to think critically and analytically about a text, and the passion and conviction to pursue their interpretations.
It’s the director’s job to answer the difficult question of “why”: why stage this show here, now, with these actors and for this audience? In essence, why does this performance matter?”
Their professional skills include:
- Hiring and leading a production team
- Casting and running auditions
- Basic theatrical design
- A unique vision
- Critical and analytical thinking
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Leadership
- Multitasking
- Networking
- Time management
They must be:
- Creative
- Flexible
- Encouraging
- Positive
- Excellent problem solvers
- Self aware
- Inspiring
- Imaginative
- Ethical
- Unbiased
- Organized
In short, they must be perfect! Ha!
The Real Skills You Should Look For in a Director for the Stage
Several times a month, I read in Facebook groups of theater teachers begging for help. Much like my scenario, they’ve been thrown into directing the school play or musical. It’s difficult enough to direct young actors, but it’s made more challenging when a novice director must also serve as the production’s artistic director.
Recently, It dawned on me that I could help these novices. Oddly sometimes I forget how much I’ve experienced–such as the time a student did a back flip off a bench (without my permission) only to break his arm right there in front of an audience or when a bat flew down from the catwalk of an old theater and out into the audience or the time I bumped a table with the cd player on it and made it skip a section of a dance in Fiddler on the Roof I directed.
Yes, I’ve been through the ups and downs and have the scars to prove it! .
I got to work and made eight checklists for directors to use the day of a production’s opening night. These checklists include: set, costume, lights, sound, props, box office, concessions and stage management. A director can hand them out to various crew heads and merely checked off once the job has been completed.
The Importance of a Leader Being Organized
I was looking for information about the reasons being an organized leader is important and found this great quote from www.commonsenseleadership.com,
“Being organized sends a positive image, which is so important as leaders are signal senders. We want to send an image that we have it all together, that we can and will focus on what is most important, not things that keep us busy and may not have the most beneficial impact.
Fact is, being organized enables us to be more productive, set an example for our team members and impress our external clients – to more efficiently manage our time.”
So good, huh?
Another attribute of a great director is somewhere aware of time. They are first to rehearsals, follow their rehearsal schedule time allotments, don’t keep their actors late for unecessary reasons just to name a few. I was taught,
If you are early, you are on time.
If you are on time, you are late.
If you are late, you are in trouble.”
You Don’t Want to Be This Director
One director I worked with thought nothing of keeping an entire cast very late in evening at the last dress rehearsal only to give notes to just three cast members. We were exhausted for opening night and then she’d gripe we had no energy on stage. WHAT?!? Needless to say, she ran off fabulous talent with this behavior.
Not me! I understand my casts have volunteered and although the audience applause is their “payment”, they still gave up their free time to perform in the show.
When my cast wants to socialize during rehearsal, I ask them to arrive early. That gives them time to chat and it keeps us to my rehearsal time. Usually, I take breaks during rehearsal and stay to the time I’ve planned for each part of the rehearsal. I’m respectful of people’s time.
You have no idea how much people appreciate this.
If you want to save time, frustration and take aware your worry, pick up a copy of these checklists. I wish I’d had them when I began directing in 1980.
Pick up my Director’s Helper Checklist here: Director’s Checklist
Have you directed a production? What experiences have you enjoyed? I’d love to know. Contact me at DhcBaldwin@gmail.com or my website at DeborahBaldwin.net
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