Product Description

I am interested in the artistic process. In order to approach the theatre as artists, we should have a good look at our tools and how we make decisions. How do we approach one another in the arena of a rehearsal or on a stage? How do we begin, how do we proceed, and what are our allies?
--From the Introduction
A Director Prepares is a fascinating and thought-provoking examination of the challenges of making theatre. In it, Anne Bogart speaks candidly and with immense wisdom of the courage required to create "art with great presence."
Each chapter tackles one of the seven major areas Bogart has identified as both potential partner and potential obstacle to art-making. They are Violence; Memory; Terror; Eroticism; Stereotype; Embarrassment; and Resistance. Each one can be used to generate extraordinary creative energy, if we know how to use it.
A Director Prepares offers every practitioner an extraordinary insight into the creative process. It is a handbook, Bible and manifesto, all in one. No other book on the art of theatre comes even close to offering this much understanding, experience and inspiration.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15951 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

From Library Journal
Bogart (directing, Columbia Univ.) is the artistic director of the SITI Company, an ensemble-based theater company that she founded with Tadshi Suzuki. Her book is aimed at the practitioner but has value for the avid theater goer as well. What we see on stage, as a whole, is a culmination of bits and pieces, steps forward and backward, as a work of "art" is created and then presented. In each essay, Bogart discusses one of seven concepts violence, memory, terror, eroticism, stereotype, embarrassment, and resistance that can work as an obstruction or catalyst to this creative process. The concepts themselves are thought-provoking, and Bogart's text is even more so. For Bogart, these concepts incite energy (positive or negative) that both actors and director absorb and radiate. One suspects that the energy acts on the viewer (and reader) as well. A quote by Jeanette Winterson on the first page clearly illustrates Bogart's passion and love of the theater experience: "Art is the burning bush that both shelters and makes visible our profounder longings." For all theater collections. Susan L. Peters, Univ. of Texas Medical Branch on Galveston
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Bogart has undeniably distinguished herself as a superior director, and with this pubication, she is successful in providing a practical text that encourages self-discipline, experimentation, and artistic growth among theatre practitioners.
–Carrie Kathryn Lee, Bowling Green State University Modern Drama, Spring 2002

In A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre, [Bogart] provides insight into her own artistic development, while offering straightforward advice to both the novice and the experienced director...[She] offers directors both inspirational and practical solutions to common problems.

No Instructions, No Theory, No Intimate Personal Revelations: Just Some Pith Observations, Lively Vignettes and Deeply Held Beliefs from One Accomplished Director.

Open this short clutch of essays by Anne Bogart, and you will set loose a thousand passions, principles and debates to keep you and your friends up at night over a bottle of booze...We will all find something to disagree with in this book, but Bogart knows that this is necessary and good. Her essays will nuture, provoke, instruct and encourage for years to come.
–David Herskovits, Artistic Director, Target Margin Theater

The concepts themselves are thought-provoking, and Bogart's text is even more so.
–Susan Peters, Library Journal, November 2001

The concepts themselves are thought-provoking, and Bogarts text is even more so.
–Susan Peters, Library Journal, November 2001

About the Author
Anne Bogart is a director and teaches directing at Columbia University and New York University.

Customer Reviews

like my bible, but not my manual
It's true that this book does not offer technical guidance on directing. I concur with the other reviewer in recommending William Ball's "Sense of Direction" if you are looking for a straightforward beginner's guide for directing and managing rehearsals and the technical aspects of producing a show (with lots of little practical details that some other writers leave out).

What this particular book is invaluable for is its wisdom on the art of directing. The information Bogart provides in this book is not useful in the sense that it will not help a newcomer to know how many run-throughs to schedule before tech and such. It will be of incredible use, however, when a director is in the middle of a rehearsal trying to make innovative and engaging directorial choices on the fly and simply does not know where to begin or how to even approach the subject politically, intellectually, or artistically (which is the real difficulty in directing). Bogart here is big on encouraging artists to make "brave" choices without censoring themselves, but to still be aware of the political choices they are making. This sounds like telling people to be brave when they don't have the practical experience to develop or implement these big choices. I think the technical experience, however, comes with just that; experience. Get a different kind of guide to start out with (consider Bogart's practical guide, "The Viewpoints Book"), keep directing over and over again, try different things, read this book and others, and definitely consider some of the points Anne Bogart makes here in this work. Ball's book is what guides me in how to structure rehearsals; Bogart's (and Augusto Boal's as well) work is what inspires me to direct in the first place. Coincidentally, they are all at odds with each other on certain philosophical and artistic points (Ball believes the actor to be heroic when they are free to make choices, Bogart believes the actor to be heroic when they know how to accept constraints, Boal believes it is heroic when the spectators themselves make the choice to act, etc.), but that is the joy of figuring things out for yourself. This book is a great place to start in developing your own philosophical approach to directing (and I believe that as an artist, you should very much have some kind of philosophical approach to your own work). I personally have Anne Bogart's wisdom and techniques to thank for many of the choices I make as an artist, and I am glad that I read this book and became familiar with her work early on in my directing experiences.

p.s. On a technical note, her writing style is sometimes a little long-winded, meandering, and vague. Read this for fun (or "inspiration," if you will), and just let her lead you from anecdote to anecdote. I personally like her style, but others might find it distracting.

Required Reading
Full of holes and alot of overbearing personal philosophy. I found myself crossing out lines of this text, as so much of this is conjecture and hyperbole. The chapter on Violence is worth the cost of the book, however, I would recommend going to the library and saving your money. Some directors swear by this text, thusly it is a potent force in the contemporary theatre. However, many of these ideas have been chewed up and misused by so many inexperienced Bogart groupies that it has little more validity than, say, a Richard Foreman text in its extremely self-referential nature.

A must have for your theatre library
A vitally important book about creating theatre in the 21st century. Those who complain that this book is not a handbook for how to direct are unfortunately missing the point - one would be hard pressed to find a more important, inspirational book about why we take on the struggle that being in theatre brings.

Don't let the price scare you, all you fellow actors on a budget - this book is for you, too.