🔵 🔴 🟡 Course description

The directing course aims to provide students with an understanding of the tools, methods, skills and creative resources used by performing arts directors. During the course, students will become familiar with the means of directing and the challenges faced by directors in preparing for the staging of a performance, during the different stages of directorial work. Students will get to know the main creative partners of directors and will become familiar with the methods of managing creative teams. Finally, examples of directorial methods of important artists will be presented to help understand the different modes of composition of the media available to directors. Students will be asked to prepare (individually or in groups) assignments on projects or themes of their choice, focusing on the stage of preparation that precedes each directorial project.

Students at the end of the course:

• know the basic means and the main currents of the art of directing.

• are familiar with the directing methods of artists who have defined the history of directing.

• are familiar with the members, responsibilities and means of the creative teams of a performance, as well as with the responsibilities of the other contributors.

• are able to carry out the preparatory work required for the formulation and development of a directorial idea.

• have the opportunity to capture a part of their directorial idea in a medium of their choice.

🔵 🔴 🟡 Theory (2 hours)

The theory follows the modules of the workshop, enabling students to deepen their understanding through historical examples of different directorial techniques and aesthetic approaches. As the directorial work involves theory and practice in an inextricable way, in each section of this laboratory course it needs the appropriate theoretical support.

🔵 🔴 🟡 Workshop (1 hour)

1. Directing as an art and as a technique. A brief historical review of the origins of the art of directing. Forms and main aesthetic directions of directing from the end of the 19th to the first decades of the 20th century.
2. Directing from dramatic to post-dramatic theater.
3. The mechanism of theatrical production: a brief presentation of the structure and hierarchy of a theatrical organization, the functions and professions that make it up in accordance with international practices. b) The profession of the director: tools, methods, techniques. The director's relationship with the other professions of the theater. The director as an artist and as a manager of human and financial resources.
4. Reading a play from the point of view and with the director's tools. Dramaturgical analysis and dramaturgical processing of the text. The course from the objective to the subjective reading of the work by the director. Research and documentation of the director's gaze.
5. Deepening the analysis of the play or thematic field as material for the performance: Role analysis, action analysis, role resumes, preparation of improvisations.
6. Co-creating with the creative team: From the first ideas to the models. Coordinating the creative team's research.
7. Before the rehearsal.
8. The first days of rehearsal.
9. The director's work with the performer.
10. The setting up of the scenes.
11. The final testing period and the show.
12. Pre-presentation and critical feedback on students' work.
13. Presentation of students' work: Critical evaluation. Report of the lesson.

Review language: Greek

🔵 🔴 🟡 Evaluation method:

• Written assignments (20%)

• Artwork (80%)

• Face-to-face
• Use of ICT in teaching
• Use of ICT when communicating with students.
• Learning process through an electronic platform.
• Communication with students via email and through an electronic chat space in the e-class.

https://eclass.uop.gr/courses/2614/

🔵 🔴 🟡 Course Textbooks [Eudoxus]

• Anne Bogart, (2019) A Director Prepares: Essays on Art and Theater, trans. Eugenia Tzirtzilaki, Eridanos
• Anne Bogart & Tina Landau (2020) The Book of Viewpoints: A Practical Guide to Viewpoints and Composition, Patakis.

Extra Bibliography

• Architects of contemporary theatre, Dodoni, Athens, n.d.
• Denis Bablet, History of Contemporary Directing: 1st volume: 1887-1914, trans. Damianos Konstantinidis, University Studio Press, 2008.
• Anatoly Vasiliev, Seven or Eight Theater Lessons, trans. Despina Sarafidou, KOAN, Athens 2010.
• Peter Brook, The Empty Space, trans. Maria Paschalidou, KOAN, Athens 2016.
• Antonis Glytzouris, The art of directing in Greece, Crete University Press, Heraklion 2011.
• Jean-François Dusigne (ed.), From Art Theatre to Theatre Art: An Anthology of 20th Century Foundational Texts, trans. Maya Lymperopoulou, Municipal and Regional Theatre of Patras, Patras 2002.
• Jaqueline Jomaron, History of Contemporary Directing: 2nd volume: 1914-1940, trans. D. Konstantinidis, University Studio Press, 2010.
• Judith Weston, Directing the Actor, trans. Nikos Leros, Patakis, Athens 2006.
• Michael Bloom, Thinking Like a Director: A Practical Handbook, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2001
• Eduard Braun, The Director & the Stage, Merthuen, London 1982.
• Harold Clurman, On Directing, Fireside, New York 1997.
• Frank Hauser & Russell Reich, Notes on Directing: 130 Lessons in Leadership from the Director’s Chair, Bloomsbury, New York 2003.
• Jeane Luere & Sidney Berger (eds.), The Theatre Team: Playwright, Producer, Director, Designers, and Actors, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut; London 1998.
• Katie Mitchell, The Director’s Craft: A Handbook for the Theatre, Routledge, London 2009.
• Gail Pallin, Stage Management : The Essential Handbook, Nick Hern Books, London 2011