Directors Resources

The book club is a low cost opportunity for directors to gather together for a weekend to explore classic and current books on directing. The aim will be to prize from them practical work that can be applied to the directors process. Chapters from the chosen book will be allocated to individual directors to study and apply ready for a practical session with their co-directors. A review of our findings will be be copied on to our web page as a resource guide for directors and the public.

The Story so far... Living Pictures Book Club at the Jerwood...

As theatre makers we read a great many "theatre books" – books on directing and acting or descriptions of a particular practitioner’s process, but relatively little of what we read ends up in our practice. What we actually do in the rehearsal room tends to derive from things we have done practically, either in training, workshops or while working as assistant directors or actors. Living Pictures set up the Book Club to combat this problem, by creating a forum in which directors and actors can try applying the ideas from theatre books in an open, low-pressure environment. It also provides a forum for directors and actors to learn how to work together and investigate their collaborative process away from the pressures of the rehearsal room.

The Structure of the Book Club

The book club takes place over a weekend. In advance of the weekend, the directors have read a theatre book and prepared an hour and a half’s session in which they apply a chapter or theme of the book to Three Sisters. The actors do not read the book, but they do read Three Sisters and they learn a short scene, in case any of the exercises require them to be off book. At the start of the weekend the company warms up, gets to know each other and then begins work. After each hour and a half session the actors feedback about what elements of the exercise were helpful to them and the directors feed back about how they read the results of the exercise. Over the course of the weekend we work through the book in chronological order. At the end of the weekend, there is a summing up session in which all participants share their thoughts on the book and describe which elements they will take into their directing or acting process.

What we have learned so far

The two books we have explored so far are The Actor and the Target by Declan Donnellan and Different Every Night by Mike Alfreds. Both books surprised participants; exercises we were highly sceptical about proved transformative and exercises we were certain would work had uninspiring results. We all took several elements from each weekend that we were certain we would integrate into our working processes. Here is a selection of feedback from the workshops:

"An opportunity to try ideas out in practice without the pressure of a production situation, as well as being able to watch and interact with other directors – both are invaluable and rare."

"Usually if I don’t understand or agree with something I read I just forget/ignore it, but having to really address the difficulties in the book, and work through them together produced some amazing results!"

"GREAT Value for money"

"As an actor it is good to be constantly trying different ways of working: book club gives an opportunity to apply all the books that you read at drama school to a text and see if they work for you."

"A great way of getting people together to learn from each other, it helps that everyone is involved in everything."

"It definitely has value as continuance in training and maintenance of skills and flexibility for a performer. It also seems to be very useful as a forum for directors where they can expose themselves to different techniques and processes in a safe space outside the usual constraints of time which come with a typical rehearsal process."

"I love the fact that I am learning as well as being a facilitator for other people’s learning... a really valuable experience for actors and directors."

"The space is warm, light, ideal. It’s good to be able to work at the Jerwood."

"It beats reading the book alone at home by a mile!... keep 'em going!"

Future Plans

If we are able to continue working at the Jerwood Space, here are a few of the books that we would like to examine:

Presence by Patsy Rodenburg	The Art of Acting by Stella Adler
Theatre Games by Viola Spolin	Respect for Acting by Uta Hagen
Impro by Keith Johnstone	On Acting by Sandford Meisner
The Tricks of the Trade by Dario Fo	Taking Stock by Max Stafford Clark
Beyond Stanislavsky by Bella Merlin	An Actor's Tricks by Yoshi Oida
To the Actor by Michael Chekhov	Viewpoints by Anne Bogart
The Stanislavsky Toolkit by Bella Merlin	How to Stop Acting by Harold Guskin
Why is that so Funny? By John Wright	Stanislavsky and the Actor by Jean Benedetti
The Tape Recorded Sessions by Lee Strasberg	Actions by Maria Caldarone

The Club is open to both actors and directors – the only criteria is a desire to learn. The cost will be minimal (Usually about £10). We are able to keep the cost down due to the generous support from The Jerwood Space.

If you have any ideas about other resources you may need as a director then please get in touch. We are pleased to find ways and means to create resources that help.

Please email us to register your interest.