Thoughts on Directing

I've been directed, and I've watched a bunch of directors work intensely with other actors, but I hadn't tried it myself until last week. So these are just some first thoughts on actually doing it.

I was lucky in my cast, which was assigned to me - two very talented young women who worked very well together. And they had to work pretty closely together, since they ended up inside one double-dress, playing conjoined twins.

I was lucky in my script. It was a literary, poetic script, which plays to my strengths. And it was by a friend, so I had a preliminary feeling for the emotional tone and intention.

My first crisis was finding a place to rehearse. The theater was available - but not during the time slots we needed to rehearse, given our three schedules. One of my sisters was able to give me downtown space to use, for free. Well, I arranged for free admission for her and my brother-in-law in return, but it was a lot less than I would have paid to rent space!

I could have rehearsed at my house, but I'm far south of downtown and the actresses both live north of downtown. It would have meant extra travel time for them.

So, we had some deep conversations about the script, sharing insights and suggestions. The actresses came up with a lot on their own. I did feel I was able to contribute something material now and then to how it was being acted. This felt to me like the most mysterious part of the process, but it seemed to go well enough. I followed my "instincts" mostly, since you don't have time to do much else.

As one of the actresses said afterward, a lot of being a director is scheduling and finding props! I did round up a nice set of props, from a couple of thrift stores and from stuff belonging to my wife. I found a nice photo of a garden to be projected behind the scene, and I found some fun introductory and closing music. I worked with the person running tech to actually develop a lighting change during a certain part of the script.

One thing I didn't really get to do was blocking - telling the actors when to move and where to stand. My actors were sitting at a table for the whole script - until the end when they stood. That's what the script specified, anyway, and we stuck with it.

Being conjoined, they were stuck on each other.
I wondered what giving birth was like for their mother.