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DIRECTING AND PRODUCING
Exploration
THE LANGUAGE OF THEATRE
Blocking: Coordination of actors’ movements on stage.
Conventions: The generally accepted practices of theatre that affect time, setting, visual elements (such as scenery and props), genre, and style.
Denouement: The final resolution of the conflict in a plot.
THE LANGUAGE OF THEATRE
Exposition: The beginning part of a plot that provides important background information.
Farce: Comedy with exaggerate characterizations, abundant physical or visual humor, and often an improbable plot.
Ground Plan: A top-view drawing of the floor plan of a set, usually in scale.
THE LANGUAGE OF THEATRE
Inciting Incident: The event that sets in motion the action of a plot.
Level: The height of an actor’s head onstage.
Plane: The depth of an actor’s position onstage.
Royalty: A fee paid for producing a written work.
Stage (Verb): To bring life onstage.
OBJECTIVES
SWBAT understand the history and identify the responsibilities of the director in a theatre production.
SWABT demonstrate an understanding of the elements involved in selecting a play.
SWBAT analyze a script by identifying the story elements of a play (plot, character, setting and theme), plot structure (exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement), genre (comedy, farce, tragedy, and drama), and style.
OBJECTIVES
SWBAT use and define appropriate theatre vocabulary including staging, protagonist,, antagonist, and secondary character, as well as the conventions of theatre and the structural components and elements of a play.
SWBAT demonstrate understanding of focus and stage composition through the use of blocking, lighting, style, body positions, stage areas, levels, and planes.
SWBAT understand the role of the director in determining the design concept and style of a production.
OBJECTIVES
SWBAT demonstrate the ability to create, develop, and execute the use of a ground plan and promptbook.
SWBAT understand the role and responsibilities of the dramaturg.
THE LANGUAGE OF THEATRE
Apron: The acting area of the stage that extends beyond the proscenium.
Arena Stage: A performance space in which the audience sits all around the stage; sometimes called in-the-round.
Downstage: The stage area toward the audience.
House: The auditorium, or the area where the audience sits.
Production Concept: How the play should look and feel.
THE LANGUAGE OF THEATRE
Proscenium Stage: The frame around the proscenium stage.
Scenery: Onstage decoration to help establish the time and place of the play.
Stage Manager: The director’s technical liaison backstage during rehearsals and performance.
Thrust Stage: Combination of the proscenium and the arena stages, with the audience sitting on two or three sides of the acting area.
Upstage (noun): The stage area away from the audience.
DIRECTING AND PRODUCING
What happens onstage during a play is achieved through careful analysis, detailed planning, and exacting rehearsal—always in the service of an artistic vision of what the whole ought to be. This vision comes from the director and producer. They are the ones responsible for exploring each facet of a production and seeing it brought to life.
The Roles of Director and Producer
Director: The person who oversees the entire process of staging a production.
Read and re-read the script
Interpret the scripts meaning and forming a vision of how the production should look/ How action should unfold
Help actors establish relationships between their characters
Evaluate total and individual performance
CONSULT WITH: Designers and Technicians (Light, sound, scenery, costume, make up), as well as the Producer/ Production Staff.
ALSO: Conduction auditions, choose the cast, divide the play into rehearsal units, and schedule rehearsals.
Staging (Verb): Bringing to life onstage.
The Roles of Director and Producer
Producer: The person who oversees the business details of a theatrical production.
Secures rights to present a play
Raise the money
Hire actors and staff
Arrange for the rental of the theatre
Supervise publicity and ticket sales
Emergence of the Director
1500-1600: Actor-Manager
1800: Theatrical Realism and Advancements in Technology
George II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen: Considered the first modern director, the first person to operate as a controlling force and guiding imagination behind a theatrical production.
The Director’s Skills
Director’s must have:
1. Visionary bent
2. Strong visual sense to create clear, meaningful stage pictures
3. Develop skills at handling movement
4. Analyze a play and present an interpretation (pictures, movements, words)
The Director’s Staff
Assistant Director: The person who assists the director by organizing the rehearsal process, coordinating rehearsal schedules, working with individual actors, and taking director’s notes.
Stage Manager
Prompter: The person who provides lines for the actors when they forget them.
The Producers Skills
A Producer Must:
1. Be responsible for the financial success or failure of a show
2. Predict an audience’s reception to a particular play
3. Analyze a play based off of it’s artistic merit and commercial potential.
The Producer’s Staff
Business Manager: The person who handles fundraising, publicity, programs, ticket sales, bill payments, and other business details of running a theatre.
Artistic Director: The person who hires the director, designers, and cast. In some theatre companies, these duties are handled by a production committee.
The Production Team
Design Team: Those who design and coordinate a production’s set, props, lighting, sound, costumes, and makeup.
Production Team: The director, producer, and their staffs, and the designers who work together to design and coordinate the production.
Production Concept
Initially roughed out by the director, often in consultation with the producer, after a close reading of the script. The production team helps refine the concept.
Producer: Promotes, budgets, additional expenses
Designers: Formulate ideas based on the production concept.
Choice: Consensus or between Director and another team member.
ALL DECIONS MADE ON OPENING NIGHT.
The Performance Space
YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF THE PERSOMANCE SPACE.
Theatre is defined by there things: a story to tell, performers to tell it, and an audience to respond to it.
Theatre can happen at ANY TIME OR PLACE these three things come together.
Types of Stages
Proscenium Stage
Thrust Stage
Arena Stage
Theatre Space Layout and Terms
THE LOBBY
Box Office: Where ticket sales are handled, usually located in the lobby of a theatre.
THE AUDITORIUM/ HOUSE
House: The auditorium, or the area where the audience sits.
Orchestra: The seats in the auditorium that are nearest the stage; in Greek theatre, a semicircular stone pavement with an altar in the center; a group of musicians who play during performance.
Orchestra Pit: The area immediately in front of the stage, where the orchestra sits. The orchestra pit may extend underneath the stage floor.
Theatre Space Layout and Terms
THE AUDITORIUM/ HOUSE
Balconies: Upper floor in an auditorium that projects out over the main floor and provides additional seating for the audience.
Mezzanine: The balcony closest to the main floor.
Light Booth or Sound Booth: A booth at the top of the balcony that houses the technician who controls the lights, music, or sound effects.
Theatre Space Layout and Terms
THE STAGE HOUSE
Stage House: The area in a theatre that includes the stage and the fly space above the stage.
Stage: The area of a theatre where the actors perform.
Fly Space: The area above a stage where lights, drops, scenery may be flown, or suspended on wire and ropes.
Proscenium Arch: The frame around a proscenium arch.
Scenery: Onstage decoration to help establish the time and place of a play.
Theatre Space Layout and Terms
THE STAGE HOUSE
Fire Curtain: Metal or fireproof fabric across the front of a stage that prevents fire from spreading
Art Curtain: A curtain made of lighter fabric used between scenes of a play, often decorated to reflect the mood or theme of a play.
Grand Drape: Front curtain on a stage, usually made of luxurious fabrics in deep colors.
Apron
Back Wall: A wall separating the stage house from the backstage area. Doors in the back wall allow large pieces of scenery to be brought onstage.
Theatre Space Layout and Terms
BACKSTAGE
Backstage: All areas of a stage other than the acting area that are out of sight of the audience.
Wings: The left and right sides of the stage immediately outside the scenery, unseen by the audience.
Stage Manager’s Booth: Place for which the stage manager calls the show.
Prop Table: Place where all items are carried onstage.
Call Board: A bulletin board for posting rehearsal times, performance changes, and special notices.
Theatre Space Layout and Terms
Dressing Rooms: Areas where actors put on makeup and change into and store costumes.
Makeup Room: In some theatres, a room separate from the dressing rooms that is devoted to makeup.
Green Room: The lounge area where actors may wait while not onstage or greet members of audience after a performance.
Stage Door: A private theatre entrance for actors and other theatre personnel.
Theatre Space Layout and Terms
Scene Shop: The place where scenery and props are built; the stage crew’s center of operations.
Paint Shop: In some theatres, a separate room where scenery is painted after it is built.
Costume Shop: A space where costumes can be built, maintained, and stored.
Prop Shop: In some theatres, a separate space where props are constructed or stored.
UPSTAGE/ DOWNSTAGE
Raked: Performance space in which the stage floor is slanted upward toward the back of the stage
