3: The Director

The Director's Role in Theatre-Making

Chicago-based freelance director Mikael Burke defines the director’s task as ensuring there is action on stage and that the audience can follow that action. As we learned in the previous chapter, the playwright designs a blueprint for action. Playwrights imagine characters, give them backgrounds, circumstances, and desires, and place them in dramatic situations where they pursue what they want from one another over the course of a narrative journey. The director takes the playwright’s work and interprets it, creating a concept for a fully realized theatrical production, and answering the fundamental question, “Why this play, for this audience, at this time?” We’ll discuss the director’s concept in more detail in the section on contemporary directing practices. Directors guide the collaborative process that transforms a script into a live event. While the playwright supplies the text and the performers embody the characters, the director shapes the overall meaning and experience of the performance for the audience. The director is sometimes seen as a dictatorial position, but this does not have to be the case. Some directors are more collaborative than others. With devised work, there may be no playwright and no predetermined script, only the artists in the room. These kinds of projects may have directors who guide the playmaking process, or the group may hold that position collectively, as is the case for Sheffield, UK-based troupe Forced Entertainment.[i]

Directors work at the intersection of artistry and leadership. Like playwrights, they are storytellers. They analyze scripts to uncover themes, images, and rhythms, and then translate those discoveries into choices about staging, design, and performance style. At the same time, they lead a creative team—designers, actors, stage managers, and technicians. The director’s point of view on the story told by the play guides these multiple perspectives. Developing this point of view or concept takes time and requires effort. The director’s responsibilities begin well before rehearsals start. Directors need to become experts in the play they plan to direct. They may research the historical or cultural context of the play, study the nuances of the script, decide on casting approaches, and collaborate with designers to establish the world of the production. During rehearsals, directors guide actors in developing characters, mapping the patterns of their on stage movement, and refining moments of dramatic tension. They must balance offering clear artistic direction with fostering an atmosphere in which actors and designers can bring their own creativity forward.

The director’s role is not fixed; it evolves across cultures and historical moments. In some traditions, as in Shakespeare’s time, the playwright or lead actor assumed the director’s responsibilities. Twentieth century American theatre directors such as Richard Forman, Lee Breuer, Anne Bogart, and Julie Taymor operated as auteurs whose personal style shaped their productions. Other directors from this time period rejected the auteur model. Lloyd Richards, who directed seminal productions like A Raisin in the Sun (1959) and Fences (1987) viewed his responsibility as a director “to illuminate the material, not to impose on it” (Freedman, 1987). Following this tradition, contemporary theatre often embraces more collective or devised approaches, where the director facilitates rather than dictates. Regardless of style, the director remains central to shaping how the play communicates with its audience. At its heart, directing is about perspective, point of view, or concept. The director asks not only “What does this play mean?” but also “How should it live on stage right now?” In answering these questions, directors help theatre remain a responsive and vital art form, continually reinventing itself in dialogue with the world.

[i] Some theatre companies prioritize ensemble creation rather than a hierarchy centered on the director or playwright. Groups such as The Wooster Group and Complicité develop performances collaboratively through improvisation, physical experimentation, and collective dramaturgy.