Stage Directing: The First Experiences

Flexible and concise, Stage Directing details the seven steps that make up the directing process: selecting a work, analyzing and researching the playscript, conceiving the production, casting, beginning rehearsals, polishing rehearsals, and giving and receiving criticism. Each step is highlighted with valuable directing tips, as well as examples from modern and contemporary playscripts and productions. Exercises, objectives, and key terms put directing precepts to a practical test, revealing what is significant about each phase of the process. Over eighty charts, graphs, and photographs unite to exemplify the text.

With a fresh voice and an engaging writing style, Patterson provides insightful questions, suggestions, and illustrations that define and invoke contemplation about the role of the director. Three original short plays provide the opportunity for hands-on analysis and the application of practical concepts. In a final essay, Patterson highlights the function and growing artistry of the director in the modern and postmodern theatre by concisely examining the history of the director.

Titles of related interest also from Waveland Press: Catron-Shattuck, The Director's Vision: Play Direction from Analysis to Production, Second Edition (ISBN 9781478611257); Catron, The Power of One: The Solo Play for Playwrights, Actors, and Directors (ISBN 9781577666202); Dean-Carra, Fundamentals of Play Directing, Fifth Edition (ISBN 9781577666486); and Patterson et al., Theatre in the Secondary School Classroom: Methods and Strategies for the Beginning Teacher (ISBN 9781478631958).

Jim Patterson has directed over 140 plays and musicals all over the country. He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus from the University of South Carolina where he served as Head of the Master of Fine Arts program in directing. Patterson was awarded the South Carolina Speech Communication Association's "Award of Excellence for Career Achievement" and the distinguished career award by the South Carolina Theatre Association. The Governor of South Carolina awarded him the prestigious Order of the Silver Crescent.