A Student Director’s Book: Directing POTUS; Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive for the stage

Abstract

This thesis consists of two parts: a written portion that includes five literary sections on preliminary research, directing preparation, the rehearsal process, the design process, reflections, and a creative portion consisting of the direction of the production of POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive. The written work aims to strengthen the production by making every part of the artistic process an active step towards embodied practice. This writing must be thought of as one that is meant to live in partnership with the production, documenting the specific experience of directing a mainstage production at Mount Holyoke College as a student director. Through this process, I engage with myself as an artist by tracking the entirety of my work towards the production of POTUS. The objectives of this production were to challenge myself in spaces that required leadership, collaboration, and tenacity: leading rehearsal rooms, facilitating design meetings, and guiding the vision of the production. Concurrently, the objective of the written work was to face everyday challenges and opportunities that emerged by tracking them as they came. Transitioning from listening to the director as an actor to listening to the actors as a director required me to lean into discomfort, adaptability, and trust of both myself and those in the room. By combining the literary and the functional, I examine the impact of preliminary research on the rehearsal process. I engage in active steps towards creating a student director’s book for myself that I may use, build, and develop as I grow as an artist. One hundred and eighty-two hours of rehearsal, twenty-eight hours of thesis meetings, sixteen hours of design meetings, and ten hours of directing preparation has culminated in this production of POTUS Mount Holyoke College.