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Video Links

These links will lead you to interviews, profiles, archive footage and behind-the-scenes footage from some of the key productions covered in the book. Getting a sense of how things come together and being able to picture these processes is incredibly important for a director, and the videos that you’ll find for each phase of the book will be a great help with this.  

Using the Exercises

For your most effective learning, choose one musical to focus on over the course of the following exercises. You may be engaged in directing a production at the moment, which will be an ideal way to apply the concepts and skills we’re exploring. But, if that isn’t the case, you can just as easily create a theoretical production to work within. If you are working on an imaginary production, try to tie it to the structure of an existing theatre you may have experience at. This can be a professional theatre you aspire to working for, a school theatre you’ve been part of as an actor, or any other organization that has a clear rehearsal and production structure. We need some clear limits to work within – space restrictions, rehearsals period, numbers of actors, etc. You’ll need to acquire a script, score and full recording of the show. Be sure to pick a musical that is new to you, or that you have never directed or been in, at the very least. And choose something you’ll actually like, not something you “should” direct.

If you are a teacher utilizing these exercises as part of a class, you’ll find several grading rubrics in the instructor section of this website that will give you clear criteria for grading assignments.