In the long run, while I have acted in many different productions, my intention is to improve my overall knowledge of the entire process of creating a musical production. This week, I shadowed the director of the upcoming musical “Cabaret” as well as a spoke to a former drama teacher, who also just so happens to be my father, about the differences between directing musicals with adults as well as directing with high school kids. I found that there is so much more to directing than I could have possibly known.
Being a director seems to me like a finely balanced act of ensuring that you are both engaging with the performers during rehearsals and writing your own notes. This week, I brought my notebook to rehearsal and opted to take some unshared notes on the performers and discuss my thoughts with the director. Within about an hour, I found that I had a well thought out collection of notes spanning around two pages, however, with notes of this detail, I sacrificed many of the moments that the actors had because I was simply too busy jotting down my thought that I was unable to catch excellent moments between the performers. When comparing my notes to that of the director, I noted that I had quite a lot more than she did, and she was able to advise me from there. We discussed my notes and ideas, and even aligned my own thought process with hers, but I would be comfortable to admit that some of the depth of the scene was lost on me as I was so hung up on basic theatre rules, such as position on stage or timing of a line, that I neglected to note or comment on the beautiful interactions taking place in front of me. This was a valuable lesson that I will be taking into consideration for next week when I duplicate the process.
From my time shadowing however, I have also learned that a director’s job does not begin on the day of the read through and does not end the day of the final rehearsal. A director is not merely responsible for the actors, but also responsible for creating vision for both the emotional and visual cadences of the show. They are also in charge of making sure that every single person, from actors to stagehands to production assistants, are all appropriately completing the tasks that will suit both the director’s vision and the creative output of the individual. Directing is a collaborative effort between the cast and crew. You will also often have disagreements based on how or what a character may embody during the delivery of any given line, or any given action defined in the script. These kinds of disagreements can easily be bypassed simply by allowing the crew to meet your vision halfway with their own vision. A character is complex and when assessed by one single person, there is very little you can do to direct the character to something complex or multifaceted. When collaboration occurs, you can dig deep about the character’s motivations, aspirations, mannerisms, and emotions. While it is imperative that a director have a distinct vision for each show and scene, the final presentation should be a collection of compromises that are all beneficial both to the cast and crew, but also to the audience.
Creating definition for your actors is an excellent way to encourage the freedom of choice and a personalized vision for everyone. If someone is simply playing the sixth main character, in their head, that sixth main character is the most important character in the entire show. They should be allowed to display their passion for their own character and display a wide range of specialized emotions and actions based on that character’s motivation.
Relating this back to the profession of teaching is incredibly simple. At many high schools, including Mount Baker Secondary School where I attended high school, there are programs in place for kids to get involved in musical productions that are appropriate both in content and in difficulty. Because of this, musicals performed at the high school level are often simpler musicals like Grease, Footloose or High School Musical, all of which have high school students at the core of the narrative. It is also not uncommon for a high school to purchase the rights to musicals that are watered down by licensing companies to make them easier and often shorter than a full musical. While we will discuss this in more detail next week when discussing licensing, this is often called a junior musical, often adding the word junior the end of the title. For instance, there are many high schools currently performing Shrek the Musical Jr as well as Into the Woods Jr. As crazy as it may sound, the original Shrek the Musical is a surprisingly deep and difficult show to perform, but the junior version allows for a smoother and simpler rehearsal period that would be much easier for full time students. There is also a major difference in the direction of adults in a large-scale musical and teenagers. Teenagers require more direction on motivations and adaptations they may make to the characters. It is much more difficult to have an underage person develop their own depth for their character, so often high school directed plays will include much more instruction on how to create and understand depth. It is not safe to say that high school shows cannot house the same kind of depth as that of an adult created musical, as some students prove themselves to be incredibly well suited to musical theatre, however this takes the kind of director who is both knowledgeable and experienced with working with kids.
As I continue to learn about the theatre world and how I can personally impact our community here in Cranbrook, I feel that I am not becoming fatigued of the constant research and personal reflection that this process has forced me to engage in. The more I learn, the more I want to know.