Product Description

Marshall W. Mason's unique methods will help all theatre artists find the only thing that matters: creative truth. When I was a young actor, he taught me everything I needed to know and continue to use today. In fact, I don't set foot inside any character I play unless Marshall's with me.
- Jeff Daniels

Marshall is the director who has brought almost all my plays to life on stage. No one gets better performances from actors than he does, so he knows what he's talking about. His approach should prove useful to actors who want to inhabit a playwright's creation without appearing to act.
- Lanford Wilson

The theatrical magic that theatergoers experience isn't magic at all - it's hard work. Before the curtain goes up, an intense collaborative process transforms the words of a writer's script into a production that involves thousands of details, hundreds of decisions, and dozens of dedicated people. Making that collaboration a successful journey is a director's job, and in Creating Life on Stage, you'll find out how a major American director does it.

Award-winning director Marshall Mason guides you through the entire adventure: from choosing a script to pre-production preparations, through rehearsals to opening night. He shows you how sound fundamental choices and a dynamic vision can make productions at any level successful: large or small; national, regional, or local. Mason takes you inside a director's mind to see how imaginative ideas can lend thematic structure and coherence to costuming, design, music, and lighting. Then he shows how a director can take a vision and bring it to life through the actors. With hard-won wisdom, Mason describes a collaborative process that helps actors locate the impulses to action that lead to strong, truthful choices inside the world of the play.

See how a director becomes what Marshall Mason calls "a sculptor of movement." Read Creating Life on Stage and understand how an artistic vision and creative collaboration can help audience members live the play from their seats and relive it again and again in their memories.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #377435 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780325009193
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Marshall W. Mason was the founding artistic director for New York's legendary Circle Repertory Company, which The New York Times identified as "the chief source for new American plays." His twelve Broadway productions including Burn This, The Fifth of July, Talley's Folly, As Is, and Knock Knock have earned him five Tony nominations for Best Director. He's won six Obies for his work, and in 1999 he received a Mr. Abbott Special Millennium Award that named him "one of the most innovative and influential directors of the twentieth century."

Customer Reviews

Creating Life on Stage--I'll be using it
There is no doubt that Marshall Mason is one of the great directors of the past half century. With his new book Creating Life On Stage, he has shown himself to be one of the great teachers of directing as well.

Not all great directors make great teachers. And not all great teachers make great directors. I'm too young to have seen Harold Clurman's work, but there seems to be a consensus that his productions did not always meet the standards of his wonderful, seminal book On Directing.

Mason's book, written in a clear, often chatty voice, undertakes to describe a system for directors--akin to Stanislavski's for actors--that can reliably clear the way for inspiration and creativity. Mason draws on both his own vast experience and the groundwork set down by other major figures, ranging from Elia Kazan and Sanford Meisner to Anne Bogart.

The result is a rich blend of the traditional and the adventurous, drawing on the best of each. He describes how to make effective use of improvisation to stimulate the depths of actors' creativity (explore the history of the play, but don't demand a predetermined conclusion...); as well as innovative techniques such as the baby exercise for lovers (check it out--you'll love it).

Nor does he neglect the basics, and even they can have a fresh feel to them. Look for advice on how breaking down a script and constructing a rehearsal schedule can be conduits for inspiration. Even volume notes and tech can make a good story. After shouting several times from the back of the theater "I can't hear you!" during a dress rehearsal an actor shouted back in frustration "F*** you!" To which Mason immediately replied, "THAT I heard!"

Most of the book, however, is devoted to creating a rehearsal dynamic that invites the maximum creativity and enthusiasm from designers and actors alike. "We'll try to be something of a family here," he tells his cast, "but our family will be based on mutual respect." He goes on to add, "if we, the artists cannot communicate with each other, how can we hope to communicate with an audience?"

Creating Life On Stage is an important and welcome book to any director's library. None that I have seen offers the kind of advice for talking to designers that Mason gives, both practical and rich. It is telling that he calls this section not "working with designers" or "dealing with designers" but rather "stimulating designers." The same holds true for working with playwrights--and if there's one thing Marshall Mason knows, it's how to sustain a successful relationship with a playwright. His fifty-year collaboration with Lanford Wilson is proof enough of that.

There are a few times where he seems a bit caught up in the virtues of his approach--telling us in one instance that he thought his production of Private Lives was "much funnier (and more honest) than the acclaimed Broadway production the same year." But this is hardly a flaw--his goal is to help directors create work they can be justifiably proud of.

The approach to directing he describes, from choosing a play to "Enduring Opening Night" may just be one man's opinion. But any director would do well to consider his techniques. Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay it is this: I'll be using it.

Masterful advice for all directors!
Marshall Mason's Creating a Life on Stage is a wonderful look into the work of a master craftsman. Using his career as a guide, Mr. Mason takes us through what it takes to be a director, what to look for in picking a play to direct, casting, rehearsal and all the way through how to handle opening night jitters.

What's incredible about this book is Mr. Mason's approach to working with actors. He has the reputation as an actor's director and from reading this book I now know why that it is. It's about exploration, freedom and giving the actors the space to reach deep into themselves and serve the character and hence the play. All this without the expectation of results oriented work, which is the death knoll of the theatre.

Mr. Mason is at ease here with his stories, serving us with both good examples of his work and being humble enough to share with us his mistakes and how we may learn from them.

From students to learned professionals, there is much to gleen from it's pages. I personally am grateful that Mr. Mason has written this document. It has furthered my growth as an artist and trust me, your actors will thank you.

For Both Directors and Actors, truly "...utterly invaluable"
Without doubt the most important book on directing since Harold Clurman's seminal On Directing, I found Marshall Mason's Creating Life on Stage both moving and inspiring. When this book was released earlier this year, I was preparing to direct a production of Wilder's "The Matchmaker". I found Mason's insights into the most critical aspect of directing: how to coax the most inspired performance out of an actor truly illuminating.

How do we create the most fertile ground for truthful living on stage? In an almost simplistic, highly organized methodology, Marshall Mason lays out a set of tools for us to use. Mason manages to present this material so simply and lucidly, that almost anyone who picks up this book, interested amateur or Broadway veteran will profit from its contents. This is very difficult material to articulate, but he manages to relate concepts of character, behavior, even consciousness and spirituality in a way that is practical and executable on stage.

Highly useful for both actors and directors of all levels, it truly is "...utterly invaluable".