Directing 101

We left our monster/kid work behind for next semester I assume and moved on to our small scenes written by my playwriting class. I got the chance to be a director!! Theres a first time for everything, so my challenege was to take Alex Sweetser's scene "Awkward Much" and help direct Arthur, Jake, and Kate to peform in the theatre concert and MLK day. I think the challenge is that we have the longest scene and lots of work to do and it feels like not enough time! Barbara gave me a big responsiblity to help my actors, who are all pretty new to acting actually, with developing characters and feeling and looking more natural onstage. I started off the process with what I know best and what Barbara has taught me to do, script anaylsis. We went through and broke the text down into chunks, moments, shifts, etc so they would feel less overwhelemed by the large scene. Then I had them make lists of facts they got from the script and then ivention and imagination they developed from those facts. The next step was to have them do a line by line anaylisis, where they thought of action verbs and intention for each line. Once all this was done we started some rough staging and set work. The process has been tough for me because I have that terrible acting tendency in me where I want to just jump onto stage and show them how I would do it rather than explain it. So I fight that urge and do another techqinue I have observed from my experience which is ask questions that will guide them to good acting choices. Also I left the staging pretty basic so they could play with it and feel free to act on impulse.The troubles with this is they dont seem to use that freedom. When we ran through it, in front of Barbara they were so intent on remembering their lines ( they have done a pretty good job by the way!) that they forgot about their movements. I think my next challenge is to get them to start listening and reacting. Last time I sat them down and we went through and I made them think of an action verb for each of the 9 chunks and to try and convey that action strongly. I think it helped a little bit, along with the notes I gave them- like Arthur using his body more and no nerdy accent and Kate and Jake making dilerbrate eye contact at moments and looking away at others. I hope that I can keep losening them up and trying to get them to work more moment to moment, because I feel like they still see the scene as a whole and arent relishing in the tiny moments of comedy or drama. We dont have much time which scares me because there is so much I want to do with them and work on individal sections and make them really strong because I think the scene has a ton of potentional. I am proud of where these three have come and I want to keep guiding them in the right direction and to be proud of what they have acomplished. I think getting them to feel comfortable and confident up there when they peform is the ultimate goal as a director. I have had so many ideas and alot of my techniques are ones that I have been taught and tried myself, but to actually be the one in charge is somewhat daunting. They look to me for the answers and sometimes I dont have all of them! I didnt think that directing would as hard as it is because in order to lead others in your vision, you have to be clear in that vision yourself. I think that with more time and more acting excercises, our group could really get somewhere in this performance. They all are eager and willing to try new things and I am so thankful that they trying their very best. Now I just want them to try not for me or for Barabara or Matt, or their friends and family, but simply for themselves. The best reward they can get from acting is feeling acomplishment and confidence in themselves because they have worked hard and they deserve it!