One of the metaphors that I’ve used in probably 95% of the job interviews I’ve done in the past year is that teaching is a lot like directing. There are textbooks or scripts, classrooms or stages, and lessons or performances. It’s not merely enough to learn the lines. And I defy anyone to say that actors never behave like middle school students. I say this because this allegory came to mind again in our directing workshop. One of the most important things about being a director, it seems, is classroom management.
In the rehearsal space, the director has to assert control over the cast but also gain their trust and get them to relax and be open to new ideas. When there are spats, the director is the arbitrator and ultimately the judge who must remind people of their contracts.
Directors could have learned these tricks of the trade not only from their drama school professors and professional mentors, but they could have just as easily come from elementary school. There really aren’t original thoughts, after all, just new ways of restating the old ones.
Something I remixed in that workshop was the importance of giving good instructions. One of the great things about being an adult is that you get to tell other adults what to do, and you can give other adults tasks and assume that they have the prerequisite knowledge to perform the various steps. But when working with someone on new material, there isn’t that luxury. I think I can safely say that acting is not something any of us finds comfortable; Yejean talked about her personal experience in an earlier blog post. Through the exercise as a class, we didn’t just learn new things about that speech; we learned new tools with which to interpret all text. That’s a fundamental tenant of teaching that I had forgotten, but now, with that workshop in my mind, I’m unlikely to forget it again.