by Stewart Marshall

Created on: January 22, 2007   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

It's important to plan ahead. I cannot stress that enough for my first play I was very unprepared but had the good fortune to have a very experienced assistant director.

As such, I would say this is your first step. Get yourself a good Assistant Director one that will stand up to you and flat out tell you when you're wrong. You will need that, because at some point you will be wrong (it's all part of learning) but you need to know when you are. Also, you must sure that they know the script and care about the script otherwise their advise will not be what's best for the script (through no fault of their own).

Second, though you may think it is too early to think about it, you must get a profficent technical and backstage crew. They will be the ones who will be able to tell if your vision is possible and they will save you time by stopping you pursuing goals you can't accomplish.

Once you've done that audition. Auditioning I don't feel there is much I can say, but don't go in with expectations of casting a particular person (if you know the actors) someone will always be capable of surprising you. Allow no prejudice and you will be surprised what you can get. It's worth it trust me.

When you've done this, if you haven't done this already, you need a good rehearsal schedule. You need targets and you need deadlines. This may frustrate actors, especially (amateurs, not to offend people, but this is my experience talking) but it does make things easier for the actors and makes sure their prepared. I would recommend including in this; informal chats about character, improvisational work and vocal work. They will get the actors natural and audible the two most important traits they need (in my opinion). Once this is sorted you need to blocking, if the actors don't know where their supposed to be it will show.

That in brief is what you need to think about, it's a good starting point from my experience.

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