A Beginner’s Guide to Directing Theatre

Robert Marsden (Staffordshire University, UK)

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Hardback

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English

Methuen Drama
26 June 2025

Theatre direction & production; Drama & performing (Children's&YA)

An accessible guide to the theatre directing process of text-based theatre, from the choice of the play through to an encounter with an audience.

Moving from how to choose a play to the opening night, A Beginner’s Guide to Directing Theatre takes the reader, via a step-by-step approach, through various techniques, practitioners, methodologies and exercises that could be applied to text-based theatre.

Through doing so, the reader comes to understand:

- The differences between directing (the approach) and the director (the role), how that crosses over and ways to navigate this - A

range of practices, methodologies and techniques for the differing and diverse styles, genres, playwrights and movements. i.e. the ‘what’ of directing - How to create inclusive, safe and diverse practices of casting and rehearsal methods

By not providing one single methodology, but introducing readers to various methods, the author garners an understanding of how different plays, genres, styles and movements require their own approaches to reach opening night.

Whilst not concentrating on devised or non-text based theatre, the book makes explicit how devising, experiential and improvisatory techniques can be embraced to inform the types of methodologies a director may embrace whilst approaching text-based work.

From here, readers will be able to know which practitioners and directing methodologies they may wish to employ and will understand where to head next.

By: Robert Marsden (Staffordshire University UK)
Imprint: Methuen Drama
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 238mm, Width: 166mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 480g
ISBN: 9781350370524
ISBN 10: 1350370525
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 26 June 2025
Audience: General/trade , Adult education , ELT Advanced , Tertiary & Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

PART ONE: Introduction to directing - What is directing? - How this book is set out - The role of the director: what is directing? - The rise of the director - Directing without the director - Creativity, breakthroughs and building blocks - Rehearsal and production analyses PART TWO: Stages of directing - Stage One: Choosing and establishing - Stage Two: Creating and forming - Stage Three: Building and Encouraging - Stage Four: Shaping and layering – the final stages - Stage Five: Delivering and entrusting PART THREE: Interviews with leading theatre directors - Tamara Harvey - Holly Race Roughan - Josie Rourke - Roy Alexander Weise References

Robert Marsden is an experienced theatre director and theatre academic, currently Head of the Media and Performance Department at Staffordshire University, UK. As a director, he has worked across subsidised and commercial sectors since 1999 and has taught directing, acting and theatre making in universities and drama schools since 2001. He has published articles in journals as well as in trade papers from The Stage to Drama and Theatre magazine amongst others, and is the author of Inside the Rehearsal Room (Methuen Drama, 2022).

Reviews for A Beginner’s Guide to Directing Theatre

Draws together a multitude of insights on contemporary directing - approaches, methods and terminology - into a cohesive, enjoyable whole. The reassuring and friendly tone will facilitate confidence in emerging and more established directors to go forth and do their best work. Interviews with highly successful directors demonstrate links and shared approaches. * Jillian Wallis, Senior Lecturer in Drama, University of Greenwich, UK *