How to begin

As you prepare by reading or thinking about the play you will direct, come up with a few key concepts or questions to explore. These themes will be the “True North” on your map as your group generates a lot of new ideas.

Always come to auditions or rehearsals prepared with exercises, pages of text, theme words, or props you would like to work with that day. Preparation for ensemble-based work will look different from the traditional method of writing blocking notes in your script. (In fact, resist the urge to write those blocking notes.) Here are practical ways to create collaborative space at a typical audition or rehearsal.

Before auditions or rehearsal
Arrive before everyone else to prepare the space and yourself. Make sure the space is clean, the floor is swept, and anything you don’t want broken or moved is put away. Ask a teacher or stage manager to help you set up the space so that everyone feels free to play and explore.

Invite everyone to come early to socialize. Ask the faculty to open the room or building, and let people enjoy some screen-free time together. Even a little break from the busy day will get people talking. In a recent production, a student director started the first rehearsal with a puzzle question, which fueled conversation almost every day before or after rehearsal. Make sure you take part in these relaxed moments too instead of using that time to prepare separately.

Start with explorations
When you give directions for exercises, invite actors to take them in and explore. Often, actors will stop when they hear your voice and look at you. While in some contexts, this is considered the polite thing to do, explain that you will be giving directions in more of a “side coaching” way that lets them continue to play as you talk.

Debrief, break, and apply
In Moment Work, Kaufman argues that a training session (and I would argue a rehearsal) is a conversation. We try something out, we debrief, and, as director, you suggest a way forward. Build in time for a short debrief after each exercise. Good open-ended questions to ask include “What did you notice?” or “What surprised you?”

It can be difficult both to pay attention to all the great ideas you are seeing and to write them down. Ask someone to take notes of rehearsal discoveries. (You will have to take notes yourself in auditions to protect everyone’s privacy.) Build in a short break in which to review the ideas generated and decide which to apply to the final staging that day.

Because so much of this work is not about talking or saying lines, you may need to do a separate vocal warmup when you start incorporating the script. The Viewpoints Book has an entire chapter on vocal exercises.

After rehearsals
You will have “homework” that will look more like traditional blocking preparation. Go over the notes made in rehearsal to make sure they will be clear when you return to that section of the play later.

Auditions: Setting the tone

If you’ve ever waited in a hallway for a callback after a one-at-a-time audition, you know how nerve-wracking it can feel. An alternative is to use audition time to explore, as a group, creative ideas related to the show and its characters. As actors learn about the show, you can watch and make notes about how people interact. Instead of asking for individual line readings, which might be either under-rehearsed or over-rehearsed, you can more fully see each actor’s range and ability to connect with castmates.

With this method, not only do you make better casting decisions but you also give more people a chance to show what they can do. This audition style makes a statement about the importance of connection among actors. It also sends a message that there will be no divas in your production. The following explorations have worked for our auditions.

Viewpoints Run to Center
This is one of the first Viewpoints exercises most people learn, and you can use it as an audition warmup or a quick energy boost and focusing moment. It helps establish the idea of working together, and you can participate in the circle yourself without getting too distracted.

In a big circle, everyone starts jogging to get their muscles and breath working. At any point, someone can start moving toward or away from the center and the group follows, with the goal that an outside observer would have no idea who the “leader” was. Repeat the action until you notice that people look calm and the group is moving as one.

Introducing spatial relationships
First, ask the entire group to begin a natural walk around the space. Encourage them to move their limbs freely, look around the room instead of at each other, and pretend they are alone for a walk on a pleasant day.

After the group looks relaxed and confident, ask them to notice how close or far away they are from other actors. Slowly encourage them to make choices about this distance and to check in with themselves about how this closeness or distance makes them feel. Next, have the group respond to suggestions about an event or character in the show. Finally, gather and debrief, paying attention to opportunities to connect actors’ ideas to the show.

Tectonic’s “Group Gesture Moments”
This exercise can directly follow the Viewpoints warmups. Identify an element of the show you have questions about and want to see actors’ chemistry around, for instance, whether the group understands a particular theme or who can play a problematic character.

Ask smaller groups to explore the space, getting into a relaxed-but-aware mindset similar to the Viewpoints exercises. The rest of the group can watch but be sure to tell them this is learning with, not entertaining, each other. Give actors a heads-up that you are getting them used to what rehearsals will feel like; this will typically result in better work and less nervous laughter.

Using one of your prepared suggestions, ask actors at your cue to begin a “chain reaction” movement gesture in which one person starts when the last finishes. For example, in preparation for our production of The Laramie Project, I wanted to see how the actors would interact around the idea of grief and community. I gave them all small battery candles and explained my idea for a scene of “a community in shock.” Then I asked small groups to explore creating a small memorial with those candles, taking turns, “one person at a time, but you see each other in this space,” I said. I made notes when I saw actors spontaneously hug or watch another person lay down her candle or choose a spot for the imagined memorial. This exercise gave me so much more information than having each actor take turns reading monologues.

Rehearsals: Generating ideas together

You will find that much of what you discover in Viewpoints and Moment Work explorations can inform or even become the blocking of a scene. Trust that there will be “aha” moments. There are many useful exercises and ideas in these two books; the key is choosing ones that will connect to the questions you wish to explore in your show.

Overall, these exercises give you the advantage of catching people making good choices. Sometimes the volume of good ideas can get overwhelming. Think about creating a daily five or 10-minute break to sift and sort what you liked best. When everyone comes back to work, you can say something like, “I noticed this idea came up, and I would like to see how that plays in this scene.” Then, you can ask people to try something they discovered while reading their lines. It’s fine if it looks messy at first. With a few repetitions, the entrances, exits, and movements will become clearer.

These tools also give you an alternative to what Bogart and Landau refer to as the actors’ constant approval-seeking and the director’s constant need to say, “I want you to […].” It frees you from those awkward moments when everyone gets stuck and looks at you for the answer. You can still choose the best ideas from rehearsals, but now everyone in the room is a problem solver. Everyone gets to play. And the rehearsal break will give you space and time to make decisions.