On Directing.

Having finished the run of The Crucible now, I have an opportunity to look back on my first attempt at directing, and the various failures and failings therein. While it was a successful show that did quite well, we certainly had our hurdles.

I think a large part of the issue comes from the idea of the role of 'director', and what different people see them as.
To many, it seems that the director should be the be all and end all, the buck stops with them, they make all the calls and all the plays, and the success or failure of the show ultimately rides on their shoulders.
For those that know me, though, they'll know that this doesn't really sit with who I am, or how I work, very well at all. Rather, I like to work collaboratively. And the word that is crucial for me here is 'ownership'. (NB: not meaning owning people! Very important.)

What I've strived to do as a director - and I think what I try to do when I lead creatively in general - is give people ownership over specific things. Not everything; but specific things.

For example. For the person who is in charge of sound, or lights, or props, or costumes, or whatever it might be. I give them ownership over that. I enable them, as much as it is in my power, to make their own decisions with those things. By and large, I don't have much knowledge in these areas. Me dictating what I think they should do makes no sense. I'll give them my ideas that I have from my knowledge of the show, of course - but I'm not going to prescribe what they do.

I do a similar thing with the actors; but with them, I give them ownership over their characters. Yes, I'll have ideas about how the character should look, or feel, or say. But ultimately, they're going to have a lot more time to dive into their character than I probably will, when I need to have a working knowledge of all the characters and scenes and relationships. They'll also (hopefully) have a deeper knowledge of the specific things they do than I will. I've cast them because of their acting ability, because of how I believe they can build and portray a character, not for their capacity to replicate what I say. I don't want to be a puppetmaster. I want to be a collaborator, a facilitator.

Unfortunately, this way of thinking and working, while allowing some lovely flexibility and creativity, lacks decisiveness. It lacks clarity. It lacks (strangely enough) direction. And I think that's the difficulty that I faced, in finding these things hard to give to people, and I think that's what some of the actors and team found tricky as well at times, particularly as we got towards the pointy end of things, and bits needed to be a bit more nailed down. Thankfully, I had other people that were good at that sort of thing, and able to step in there.

I'm not sure if there's a good balance in between somewhere; or perhaps what I'm talking about is something very different to what a director is. I don't know. But I don't think I'll be doing another go at this any time in the near future. For now, I'm happy to rest.

I do want to note - considering it was my first time doing this, and seeing as it was such a big show, I think I did pretty well. And that's what I've heard from most people as well, which has been very encouraging. This is just me looking back at the things that I did and didn't do well, seeing the patterns, and being able to articulate and formulate them more clearly than I was able to in the midst of all of it.