How to Rehearse a Play: A Practical Guide for Directors

Based on interviews with over forty award-winning artists, How to Rehearse a Play offers multiple solutions to the challenges that directors face from first rehearsal to opening night.

The book provides a wealth of information on how to run a rehearsal room, suggesting different paths and encouraging directors to shape their own process. It is divided into four sections:

• lessons from the past: a brief survey of influential directors, including Stanislavski’s acting methods and Anne Bogart’s theories on movement;
• a survey of current practices: practical advice on launching a process, analyzing scripts, crafting staging, detailing scene work, collaborating in technical rehearsals and previews, and opening the play to the public;
• rehearsing without a script: suggestions, advice, and exercises for devising plays through collaborative company creation;
• rehearsal workbook: prompts and exercises to help directors discover their own process.

How to Rehearse a Play is the perfect guide for any artist leading their first rehearsal, heading to graduate school for intense study, or just looking for ways to refresh and reinvigorate their artistry.

Damon Kiely is the author of How to Read a Play (Routledge 2016) and is a director, playwright, and professor of directing and acting. He is the chair of performance for the Theatre School of DePaul University.