Radio Drama
Searching for the techniques and radio drama directors, I did not find much information about them. It might be because it is relatively new compare to traditional theatre. But also the reason might be in lower demand to tv or cinema, even though it came to the audience later. When we go to the cinema or theatre or watch a movie at home, we contribute our attention to the story; otherwise, we might miss the plot. It is difficult to concentrate on radio drama for 30-40 minutes without being distracted by things happening around us.
But because of lockdown and coronavirus, this genre became more popular—one of the causes actors could do it remotely. The other reason it is cheap to make. Professional radio drama does not require a few weeks of rehearsing and staging; it does not require any costume or make-up. Usually, actors come to the studio and record the play in 5-6 hours.
The first radio director was Val Gielgud, who staged the first radio drama in July 1930. His tips for writers and directors were to use not many characters so that the audience will recognize different voices. He recommended using real people's lives for narratives so that the public will identify themselves to the characters in the story.
One of the most iconic shows in audio drama is The War of the Worlds, directed by Orsen Welles.
In 1938 Mercury Theatre on the Air audio collective presented this realistic play that shocked many Americans and led to the time phenomenon. The director intended to create a real-time play that was supposed to go in real life as the audience listened. But as a result, listeners who joined the radio later were confused and misled to believe it was a real-time event. Some of them even committed suicide.
As a director, Orsen Wales used techniques of parody (asking one of the actors to perform the voice closed in sound to President Roosevelt) or increasing pace to create an atmosphere of panic. But the most amazing fact for me was that Wales made those crucial changes in few hours before the play. Going through the script, again and again, he came up with some brilliant ideas that saved the show.
As an aspiring director, I could learn from this example to always be true to my original idea, not give up and give your best, knowing that I could change something even in few hours before the show. The cast and the writer commented on the play as a dull and very dull show. But after Orsen Welle's directions and understanding of the radio work, this play became one of the most iconic plays in radio history.
Some tips I found:
1. Keynote- Be Practical! Pay attention to the requirements of length, treatment, etc.
2. Preparing the script that correctly typed on quarto paper rather than ’written in longhand on brown paper bags' backs.
3. Sound Effects. Indicate the points at which sound effects must occur.
4. Question of length? The speed of dialogue in the radio is slightly slower than that taken in the theatre. The average timing of a minute and a half to a page is a ‘very fair average at which to work’.
5. In 1929, Gielgud said the ‘best practical length for a radio play is an hour and a half. I do not mean that this will always be the best length or that it is the ideal length.’
http://www.irdp.co.uk/GIELGUD/valbbc13.htm
https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/100-voices/bbc-memories/val-gielgud
Another practitioner is Jessica Dromgoole, a BBC radio director/producer.
In her interview, she emphasized that people like to imagine things. Therefore, she recommends taking all visual descriptions away, especially those that represent the character's appearance. It would be better to avoid adverts (though I thought it might be cool to show the time).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/resources/be-inspired/jessica-dromgoole
British actor and radio director Dirk Maggs invented the term Audio Movie. In this variant, the piece is made with the same sound effects as the movie.
A Summer Night by Jack Thorne
The play I decided to direct was A Summer Night, set in 2011 at the London riots.
The link to the logbook with explanation how we created it is below. Enjoy!
Director's job
Director is the person who sets the vision for the project. Director works close to the set designers, actors, stage management crew, producers, writers, make-up artists, and lighting designers. So in the general sense, the director helms the production from the onset, rehearsals, and eventually to the final product. They work closely with the creative team, the technical and design teams, and of course, with the actors to make the ideas in their heads a reality.
Therefore, the skills the director must have:
creativity, the ability to imagine play or scenes into reality
broad knowledge about modern techniques and current productions
networking skills
communication skills, the ability to negotiate and present the idea in understandable language
ability to research
time management skills
Responsibilities
Some theatre directors act as an administrator or producer, depending on the theatre's staffing structure and size. Some might also work alongside an executive administrator or general manager who heads the theatre or an artistic director who selects the plays and determines the programming.
Specific tasks vary depending on the role and type of theatre, but everyday activities include:
programming and budgeting
working with writers through workshops or script development schemes
adapting a script and, if the play is newly written, working with the writer or collaborating with playwrights
breaking down a script, analyzing and exploring the content, and conducting relevant research
translating and interpreting a script or musical score
holding auditions for productions, selecting and hiring designers, musicians, etc.
managing time and organizing people and space
attending production meetings with set designers
organizing rehearsals
communicating and liaising with all parties involved, including actors, the creative team, the production team, and producers
attending preview performances and preparing detailed notes for the cast and the creative and production teams
helping to publicize the show by giving interviews and leading discussions.
How to become a director?
The start might be different, but the overall recommendation is to get into drama. At school, college, or university, direct student plays, amateur plays, student films, documentaries. Also, there are options of short courses or summer schools. But if there is an option to go to study, then the best place is Theatre Directing Course at Birkbeck.
There is a new BA (Hons) directing course at the University of Plymouth, which is the first directing course in England. Usually, directing combines with acting or writing, but not on its own. It was like this because when young people graduate from the uni, it is difficult to specialize only in directing money-wise and trust-wise. Or people came to the directing after they try themselves at acting.
As an aspiring director, it might be challenging to fund yourself or find a theatre that can invest money in the production.
A more practical route is to find a job or volunteer as a director assistant or stage manager, which involves regular communication.
Another way is to band with actors or set designers, producers, or writers and set up a theatre company. Fundraising might be challenging, but it is an excellent opportunity to challenge yourself.
The Independent Theatre Council (ITC) and UK Theatre negotiate minimum pay rates with appropriate entertainment unions on behalf of their members.
The agreed weekly fee for assistant directors is around £480.
A theatre director of a full-length play should receive a minimum preparatory fee of £1,579 and weekly rehearsal payments of £483.
Freelance directors in a commercial repertory theatre can command a minimum fee of around £2,734, with a weekly fee of approximately £500 to £600.
Directors may negotiate their contracts and salaries, or they may employ agents to deal on their behalf. Variations in pay may be considerable. Low wages may be supplemented by freelance work, running creative workshops, or script consultancy. Working as a theatre director can be a precarious way to earn a living. Directors may also branch out into acting or voice-overs.
Usually, theatre directors work freelance from one project to another. According to an article on Stage.com, directors earn on average around £10,000 a year. However, directors working for the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the Royal Opera House were paid best, with 40% earning between £20,000 and £25,000 per production.
https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/theatre-directors-in-pay-struggle-half-earn-less-than-5k-a-year
https://targetcareers.co.uk/career-sectors/arts-and-creativ
e/1014269-how-to-become-a-theatre-director-job-role-and-training-routes-explained
https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/theatre-director
https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/how-to-become-a-theater-director-66000/
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2010/mar/23/theatre-director-10-top-tips
https://www.whatsonstage.com/leicester-theatre/news/emily-oulton-curve-trainee-director_50346.html
Directing Evaluation
Theatre Directors
Inspiration
Before the last national lockdown, I thought to direct a play on the stage. Because of the circumstances, I changed my mind and switched it on radio play. However, I was inspired by the directors below when I chose A Summer Night. The intention to make a difference and challenge the audience is close to my vision of selecting the piece and directing it.
Konstantin Stanislavsky
At the end of the 19th century, there were not many independent theatres in Europe. In 1898 Konstantin Stanislavsky founded the Moscow Art Theatre in Moscow's center. He created a unique performing style, where actors searched for the character's behavior's inner psychological truth.
Until 1882 the state forbade any public theatres in Moscow or St.Petersburg. The Maly Theatre in Moscow and the Alexandrinskiy theatre in St.Petersburg were only two theatres performing at that time. Besides, it was up to the actors to decide which play to perform. Simultaneously, a director had only a nominal part of observing the rehearsals without making corrections or staging them. Actors were picking their costumes out of their wardrobe. Also, painted flats from the stock were used as a setting.
After 1882, few commercial theatres were established. But they were not ready to experiment unless they knew that it would make a profit. On the other hand, the amateur groups were interested in taking a risk. And in 1888, Konstantin Stanislavsky forms a drama group, the Moscow Society of Art and Literature.
Konstantin Stanislavsky was born in a famous, wealthy Russian family who was an amateur actor by himself. He liked the theatre so much that he invested his money in productions. Stanislavsky became the first Russian stage-director. He was inspired by Meiningen Theatre, which he closely studied in 1890 when the assembly came to Moscow. After meeting Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, critic and novelist, they decided to create a theatre independent from the state and business. It was also a moment when they decided to have a unique setting for each production. The performance should have served as an artistic experience, not as an entertaining social event.
In the opening, Stanislavsky said that the main idea was to create a theatre that brought low classes into it and presented them some moments of happiness. In a historical contest, just less than 40 years ago, peasants were given freedom. But still, a little was made by the state to improve the spiritual and material conditions.
There were 39 people in the company. Some of them were ex-students of Nemirov-Danchenko or recruited from the Moscow Society of Art and Literature group.
Stanislavsky aimed for realism on the stage by actors' performance, settings, and experiments with everyday noises and lighting. For the Othello production, Stanislavsky went to Venice to paint dresses from frescoes and buy traditional parts of the costume. For the play Tsar Fedorov, he and Victor Simov, the naturalistic set-designer, went to Rostov, Kazan, and Nizhniy Novgorod to study the history, architecture, and collect authentic costumes.
Working for the first time on Anton Chekhov's play, the Seagull Stanislavskiy discovered a sub-text for the first time. Chekhov made a comparison to real-life. When people have a discussion, they mean something else when they are talking to each other. Or the personality of someone develops when nothing happened to them at that moment. Inspired by that, Stanislavsky prescribed every actor's movement, voice, and gesture. Besides, his instructions extended to sound-effects (that was natural too: a sound of a crying baby, dog barking, peasants talking), make-up, costumes, and props (mise-en-scene).
Symbolism played an essential part in productions. The unique lighting, noise, or atmosphere at the start or the end of the scene would create a specific feeling of loneliness or depression.
In those years, Konstantin Stanislavsky created a system for actors to help them with developing their character. I used that system in my performances and applied it to my characters.
Techniques:
Given circumstances are the script's information about the place, time, era, characters, relationships between characters, and stage directions. Everything that is said in the script to help an actor to help build a role.
Emotional memory is a technique when an actor brings their personal life experience to apply to their character.
Subtext, if a play's script is a text, the subtext is the actual meaning and motivation behind those lines. The way of delivering lines might be different depends on the situations and actors that play those characters.
If or “Magic If.” Placing yourself in a character place, answer the question, “what would I do if I was in their place?”. It helps an actor to find real motivation.
Objective, super-objective, and the through-line if an objective is a reason for actions in the play. There are always obstacles that stand in a character way (It is a verb after “I wish…”). The super-objective is the character's primary goal in a whole play that motivates them and creates the relationship between them.
To conclude, Konstantin Stanislavsky was an authoritarian director who would control everything that happened on the stage, from actors' movements to lighting. Also, he created a system that helped to create a character through personal actor's experience. But in the end, he did not put the audience in the central perspective. Going through the same feelings on the stage and showing them are different things.
Edward Gordon Craig
Edward Gordon Craig was an English actor and director. He experimented with design and analyzed how movement, set and lighting affected the performance and the audience's mood. Craig was ahead of his time; he had a vision for a new theatre. He would look at a play that was to be staged and create a design for the play that would combine all the different theatrical experience elements.
For Stanislavskiy production of Hamlet, Craig invented movable screens; those with the right light make actors on the stage appear and disappear. He aimed to show the reality on the stage through the symbols and shapes created with light and shades. One of his signature concepts was that floors, walls, and even sealing on the scene could be moved freely by actors' wish in all directions across the stage area following the play's dramatic story. Craig's main idea was to create a performance where light, movement, and sound would create harmony and set a specific atmosphere that affected the audience. He also believed that each play has its vision and colour board—these units help create a unique world within this play that would help identify one show from another.
From actors, Craig wanted to achieve a truly emotional performance. He believed that dialogues and speeches distract the audience and challenge the main idea of theatre. Instead, there should be speechless actors representing tableaux images, miming, dancing, or even marionette dolls or puppets.
With the technical advancements in theatre, it is only today that Craig's ideas transform into practice. During Hamlet's performance in the Moscow Art Theatre, the installations fell one hour before the final version, and Craig did not ultimately achieve his concept.
Craig’s influenced the work of other practitioners such as Lecoq, Brook, Grotowski, and Meyerhold. His vision for a movement-based ensemble theatre has had a significant influence on modern devised theatre and the work of companies such as Complicite and DV8.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Gordon-Craig
https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/276847-practitioners-craig.pdf
Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht
During the time of the I World War, two great theatre practitioners and directors started their careers. One was Erwin Piscator and the other Bertolt Brecht. The War affected both men's' creativity and theatre vision.
Erwin Piscator aimed to destroy all accepted notions of what the stage should be and express in attacking the audience's cultural values and society. He emphasized the sociopolitical context over visual aesthetics.
Piscator created a theatre for proletariats, workers. He collaborated with Bertolt Brecht and created Epic theatre. Epic theatre – a form of theatre where the audience is no longer emotional about the play. The spectator is involved in the thinking process during the play and after the play. Furthermore, theatre takes responsibility to teach the audience (didactic theatre) and to challenge their minds. Nothing is nothing anymore.
The group was a mix of amateurs and professional actors. He applied a dramaturgic collective concept, where each person of the group worked together to create a script. With classical or ready plays, the collective adopted them for the modern audience.
In his productions, he experimented with lighting, sound, set design, and visual images. In Rasputin, he tried to change the scenery with light without changing the settings. Another technique was photomontage, in which graphics and edited photographic images combined to convey propagandist images. In one of his montages, the vapor trails of five airplanes soaring over the ruins of the Spanish town of Guernica, altered to resemble the fingers of a skeletal hand.
The design of sets was innovative too. In Russlands Tag 1920, the setting was a map that established the play's political, geographical, and economic background. In Conjunction, 1928, this principle extended to a larger stage. The play dealt with oil speculation, and the setting was a series of oil derricks. As the play progressed, the number and size of the derricks grew. The setting became part of the action and an environment for it, and the growth of the setting became a comment on the action of the play. In the Red Riot Review, 1924, produced for the German Communist Party, Piscator began the action with a fight in the auditorium. The protagonists came out of the audience to argue their points of view and commented on the various scenes' action. In Tai Yang Awakes, 1931, the setting, designed by John Heartfield, extended from the stage along the auditorium walls.
Piscator invented three different use of films in his productions:
"didactic" film - showed objective fact or historical events;
dramatic film - could be used instead of a scene on the stage to save time on explanation the events that just happened on the stage;
film commentary - used as a type of chorus that comments with historical facts on the screen or drew the audiences' attention to something important.
Piscator also invented the jotter screen, a small, auxiliary screen that projected facts, figures, titles, dates, and other bits of information.
Erwin Piscator's work inspired Bertolt Brecht to develop his ideas and techniques.
Brecht continued using new production methods, such as rotating stages, screens to project films and slides, platforms for simultaneous actions, conveyor belts, and movable flats. To create a story, he could take a character, then placed them into the modern world and face contemporary problems (The Life of Galileo). He believed that actors should be storytellers instead of becoming the role.
His goal was to teach people through the theatre. He wanted the audience to think about what just happened and then think about it when leaving the theatre. The characters in his plays are controversial and the challenges they faced too.
Brecht wanted the spectator to experience something new and reflect it on their lives. He wants the audience to think. At the same time, dramatic theatre was entertaining. In dramatic theatre, the audience associates themselves with the main characters and reaches catharsis (when the audience experiences strong emotions, such as fear, pity, happiness, fury, etc.) as actors or because of events in the play). And as a result, emotions are exceeded intellect. He called the act of distancing the audience from emotional involvement the verfremdungseffekt (it is still often called the alienation effect or v’ effect). There are different techniques used to remind the audience that they are in the theatre and stop them from being emotionally involved.
Acting techniques:
Narration, a character might tell the audience previous events of the play or introduce another character.
Third-person narration, a character suddenly steps out of their role and gives personal actors feedback on their character's emotions.
Speaking the stage directions during the performance
Speaking directly to the audience, asking their opinion, interact with them
Using placards or holding up a sign or banner, using multimedia (PowerPoint) to understand the plot better. Putting controversial information on signs to create a conflict and double meaning of the scene
Physical gestures or Gestus, Brecht believed that gestures are meaningful in his plays. Often, there were stock characters with gestures implying to characters in the play. Furthermore, there was a gesture with social comment. It was used to increase social dilemmas about the situation or character.
Song and dance, joyful music, and sad lyrics
Spass translates as “fun,” used to break the tension and again remind the audience that they sit in the theatre. It could be a stand-up or physical joke, a fun song, or an inappropriate comment.
An actor must distance themselves from the character.
Staging techniques:
Multi-rolling, one actor plays few characters (changing voice, gestures, body-language) cross-sex casting
Split-role, more than one actor plays the same character
Minimalistic set, props, and costume design
Symbolic props, something could become something else (a suitcase might become a desk)
Harsh white simple lighting
Crew staff is visible for the audience
Montage, a series of scenes going one after another and contrasting one another
Fractured narrative, the plot jumps about in time, scenes are episodic
Epic theatre shows argument; it is a political statement. The audience should remain objective. If they have emotions, they lose their objectiveness.
https://prezi.com/_d6ece0_pezr/erwin-piscator/
https://www.britannica.com/art/theater-building/The-influence-of-Piscator
https://thedramateacher.com/erwin-piscator-multimedia-pioneer-for-the-theatre/
Joan Littlewood
Joan Littlewood was an English theatre director and practitioner (1914-2002). Her productions included a wide range of genres from agitprop (a type of political art performed on the street) to commedia dell’arte and music hall. She wanted to create a theatre available for everyone across the social spectrum. Joan ran her company Theatre Workshop as a creative ensemble (the same way as avant-garde companies in Europe).
The inter-war Britain period between the end of the Ist World War and the start of the IInd World War, the union movements, the strikes of the 1920s, and the ‘Means Test’ introduced in 1931 influenced her work. Her work was also affected by the rise of fascism across Europe. People were doing hunger marches, a general strike, people in an extreme state of poverty, and the theatre of the day did not address those social, economic, and political issues. In 1934 Joan formed an agitprop company Theatre of Action with Ewan MacColl. The term agitprop is a combination of ‘agitation’ and ‘propaganda’ and originates from Soviet Russia.
Agitprop theatre uses:
political themes and satire
direct engagement with the audience
caricatures or ‘types’ rather than developed characters
characters engaging in a debate to promote a message
It is often performed on the street and written quickly to reflect current affairs.
Joan believed that actors concentrated too much on dialogues and voice, while body language and flexibility should play a vital part. She ran workshops based on Rudolph Laban's physical movement technique that helps, in general, to control the body better.
One of the techniques was improvisation during rehearsals for the new play. Actors explored different characters and settings before they had a script. They might have had swapped roles and share their research. These methods, Littlewood believed, would help the company create multidimensional, non-static characters and gain a deep understanding of the piece's motivations and messages. Work with the script also included changing the scenes' order and rewriting them (collision montage).
Littlewood introduced elements of Commedia De'La Arte, slapstick comedy, miming, and clowning to destroy false dignity, hypocrisy, and vulgarity in the theatre. From Commedia De'La Arte, she took stock characters and movement techniques distinguishing one character from another (gestures, voice, walking, posture). In Oh What a Lovely War, Littlewood based the soldiers’ movements and costumes on those of Pierrot troupes, aiming to distance the audience from any realism or sentimentality and to juxtapose the horrors of war with the twee, humorous nostalgia of traditional seaside culture.
Another technique introduced by Littlewood was a music hall. One of the most successful forms of variety entertainment in 19th-century Britain, music hall revolved around popular songs, dance, slapstick, dramatic sketches – even circus performers and live animals – with audiences smoking, drinking, singing along, and mocking. This was light entertainment for the masses. Littlewood frequently drew upon music hall songs in her performances.
Also, Joan and her company experimented with lighting, effects, and scenery. For example, The Good Soldier Schweik marked the first time a British theatre company used back-lit projection.