Theatre director
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A theatre director or stage director is a practitioner in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production (a play, an opera, a musical, or a devised piece of work) by unifying various endeavours and aspects of production. The director's function is to ensure the quality and completeness of theatre production and to lead the members of the creative team into realizing their artistic vision for it. The director therefore collaborates with a team of creative individuals and other staff, coordinating research, stagecraft, costume design, props, lighting design, acting, set design and sound design for the production. If the production he or she is mounting is a new piece of writing or a (new) translation of a play, the director may also work with the playwright or translator. In contemporary theatre, the director is generally the primary visionary, making decisions on the artistic concept and interpretation of the text and its staging. Different directors occupy different places of authority and responsibility, depending on the structure and philosophy of individual theatre companies. Directors utilize a wide variety of techniques, philosophies, and levels of collaboration.
Well-known theatre directors
- Anne Bogart (United States)
- Bertolt Brecht (Germany)
- Lucien Bourjeily (Lebanon)
- Eugenio Barba (Denmark/Italy)
- Peter Brook (British, mostly working in France)
- Richard Foreman (United States)
- Jerzy Grotowski (Poland)
- Peter Hall (Britain)
- Nicholas Hytner (Britain)
- Elia Kazan (United States)
- Robert Lepage (Canada)
- David Mamet (United States)
- Vsevolod Meyerhold (Soviet Union)
- Jonathan Miller (Britain)
- Ariane Mnouchkine (France)
- Mike Nichols (United States)
- Alan Schneider (United States)
- Peter Sellars (United States)
- Lee Strasberg (United States)
- Julie Taymor (United States)
- Robert Wilson (United States)
- Mary Zimmerman (United States)
- Fouad Awad (Palestine/Israel)
- Brian Bozanich (United States)
See also
- Artistic director
- Dramaturge
- Improvisational theatre
- Method acting
- Presentational acting
- Regietheater
- List of film and television directors
- List of opera directors
- List of theatre directors
- Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC)