Abstract

My aim with this thesis is to take college and professional level directing techniques and break them down in a digestible way so new directors can take these techniques and implement them at the high school and community theatre level. I discuss five different approaches to directing theatre with student or amateur actors, each tied to common practices and standards used in professional theatres. My goal is to take theoretical techniques taught at universities and create a practical mindset to implement them on the high school and community theatre level. Spending four years balancing teaching world history with being theatre director at an underprivileged Title I-qualifying high school has been filled with learning experiences. Having a degree in Education only partially prepared me for the difficult yet rewarding responsibility of putting on plays with minimal resources, no facilities, and with students who may have low reading levels and limited family support. While professional directors research, collaborate and continually progress as artists, as a one-man-band at a high school I found myself focusing more on achieving a final product than on the creative process. In my research of a variety of directorial methods, I look to improve my own techniques and create a road map that may be beneficial for new directors. I have streamlined professional practices down to five directing practices that can be implemented at the high school and community theatre level. The goal is to view them through a pedagogical lens, to create a variety of implementation tools for a rookie or inexperienced director. When analyzing ideologies proposed by theatre theorists along with common pedagogical practices, the research naturally broke down into five categories. Intertwining theatre principles with teaching strategies, my intention was to create directing approaches that support newer actors while aiming to incorporate professional theatre techniques. I applied this research to five short plays I directed at Dunnellon High School (FL), where I was a full-time teacher. Dunnellon High School is a Title 1-qualifying school in a poor community with a small theatre program. These qualities made DHS a good school to apply my research, as it has students who have minimal experience and require a high reliance on teacher support, with a restricted budget and facility limitations.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2020

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Weaver, Earl

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

Theatre

Degree Program

Theatre

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0007992; DP0023132

URL

https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0023132

Language

English

Release Date

May 2020

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

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