More Advice for Community Theatre Directors

Greetings ladies and gentlemen.  My name is Bobby Keniston, and I'd like to welcome you to my little blog called Theater is a Sport, where I talk about all things theatre-related.

As regular readers know, I am very much a believer in the importance of community and school theatre, not only as a training ground for professionals, but because it is vastly important to our culture as a whole.  So, today, I thought I would share some more advice for school and community theatre directors, culled from my many years directing for both of these markets. 

I talked a good deal about "beats" in an earlier post, how they are essential for a director to find and interpret.  Today, I would like to share with you all what I do early on in the directing process as part of my "director's homework", before rehearsals even begin.  I like to make a chart, which I will demonstrate below, for the play I am directing, a chart that is based on the beats of a play, and that will help to give me a start at comprehending the technical requirements, as well as the beginnings of visualising the play in my head, beat by beat, character by character.  Here is an example of the chart below:

BEAT	Page #’s	Characters Involved	Setting/ Location	Props Used	Costumes/ Changes	Lighting & Sound

Now, as you can see, the number of boxes depends on the number of beats in the play.  So, I start with BEAT #1 in the first box.  In the next box over, I put the page numbers (for example:  Pg 6 (Mike: .... How are you today) through top of page 7 (Erica:  My tooth is starting to hurt).  This gives me a roadmap.  Next box, I list all of the characters involved, and whether they enter or exit, then the setting/location in the next box, props used (personal and pre-set), the starting costumes or if there are any costume changes, and then lighting and sound shifts as indicated by the script.  Now, obviously, this is a jumping off point.  You may decide during rehearsals to add props or lighting cues, play with entrances, exits, costumes, what-have-you.  All of that is fine and encouraged.  But what this chart does for me is helps me organize the show into pieces that are not overwhelming.  It helps me to see the details and not just the overall picture.  The vision begins to come into focus for me.  I have also found that doing this homework is great for production meetings with the designers, to organize every little shift.  It's also nice for the stage manager to see what kind of rehearsal props they can scrounge up.

Again, things might change, additions and subtractions may be made.  Those notes will go into rehearsal reports, so don't worry about it.  Making a chart like this, or, at least writing out these details (by all means, don't use the chart if you don't want to), you will begin to know the piece backwards and forwards, and see how one point flows into the next.

If you have any questions or thought about this chart, feel free to drop me a line in the comments below.

If you would like to know more about me, feel free to visit www.brookpub.com, www.histage.com, www.playscripts.com, and www.hitplays.com and search for me, Bobby Keniston.  You will find my plays and links to read free previews of them.  You can also find Theater is a Sport on Facebook by clicking right here:  https://www.facebook.com/#!/TheaterIsASport

Thanks for checking out this blog post.  Remember:  community theatre directors need to be organized, and theater is not only a craft or an artform--- it is also a sport. 

He Doesn't Look Like a Thespian: Bobby Says Thanks to the World's First Actor

Thespis--- actor, tragedian, storyteller, touring performer
(I wonder if Daniel Day-Lewis will ever play him in a movie?)

Early this morning, around 3:30am, the pellet stove in my house, our only source of heat, clanged, sputttered, and then died.  Today, in my part of the world in Maine, the wind bears a chill to the bones.  My sister lent our household two big space heaters, keeping us from freezing.  I hung up blankets and comforters to separate the rooms, trying to effieciently heat as much of the house as possible.  Because these space heaters use a tremendous amount of electricity, the lights have been off for most of the day, and I am just now sitting down to share some quick thoughts before letting the computer rest some more. 

The reason I am sharing this is because I have been thinking like a caveman today, optimizing warmth where I can with minimal light, and it has led me to imagine the big bonfires, and these cavepeople gathering 'round, telling stories.  Which then led me to look at my life as a storyteller, which, thought by thought, fascilitated a travel back to Ancient Greece in my mind to think about Thespis, who, according to Aristotle, was the first person to be what we call an "actor" today (remember, actors are storytellers... which is why we are all actors). 

Thespis is believed to have been born in Icaria, known today as Dionysos, and was a singer of dithyrambs (stories of mythology sung by a chorus).  It is believed he invented the idea of having an actual character in a play who was apart from the chorus, who would be known as the "hypocrite" or the "responder".  This is believed to be the first instances of dialogue in a play.  He also had a new style of singing the dithyrambs, where he would wear many different masks to portray different characters throughout the song.  This whole new way of doing things was called "tragedy".  

On November 23, 534 BC, a competition was held to find the best tragedy at the city Dionysia, Athens, and Thespis won!  Hot from this victory, he decided, why not?, I might as well invent what people years from now will call the touring company!  And that's just what he did.    He packed up masks, costumes and other props in a horse-drawn wagon and went around to different cities, performing. 

He was the Orson Welles of Ancient Greece!

Thespis, his very own touring troupe

Thespis is given credit to being the first--- presumably, before him, no one had ever assumed the identity of a character for the purpose of storytelling.  It's difficult for me to imagine a world where someone could actually BE the first person to play a character.  To be honest, while I take nothing away from Thespis, and heartily thank him for practically creating theater as we know it in the Western World, I cannot help but believe that he may have been the first "documented" actor, I think it is also possible that storytellers before him, without even realizing it perhaps, slipped into a character.  It's just so hard not to....

So little is known about Thespis other than what I have reported.  Some claim that in addition to everything else, he also started the tradition of make-up, because, as some claim, when not wearing masks, he would paint his face in order to portray a character.  But this is impossible to say.  Even what Aristotle writes of him is about 200 years after the fact of his existence.  It is kind of a history that is so woven into the mythology of that time and place, and is almost impossible to separate.  Even the "known" works of Thespis are all disputed, and no one quite knows for sure.  What is undisputed, though, is that he did exist, and he is the reason we in the English-speaking world have adopted the term "thespian" when talking about an actor.

Some superstitious folk like to believe that the spirit of Thespis still travels to theaters across the world, causing good-natured michief during a performance, but I personally don't belive so.  My guess is he causes no mischief at all (because he knows what a hard job it is), but rather watches, fascinated by how the art of storytelling continues to grow and flourish.  Perhaps, even, he wears a mask featuring a great big proud smile.

Thank you for taking a look at Theater is a Sport today.  If you would like to become a fan of Theater is a Sport on facebook, just follow this link:  https://www.facebook.com/#!/TheaterIsASport  If you would like to learn more about me as a playwright, please follow this link:  https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Bobby-Keniston-Playwright-Page/148232788536601

If you have any questions or comments, or just want to talk about Thespis some more, feel free to drop me a line at theater.is.a.sport@gmail.com

Tune in tomorrow.  Until then, please remember, as no doubt Thespis would tell you:  theater is a sport.