Thinking Like a Director: A Practical Handbook [Paperback]

Michael Bloom (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 2001

Bloom draws on nearly twenty years of directing and teaching experience to convey the full experience of directing for the stage, as well as the mindset that all successful directors possess. More than a mere set of guidelines, Thinking Like a Director details a technique that covers every facet of theatrical production, from first reading through final rehearsals. The key to directorial thinking, Bloom asserts, is a dual perspective--an ability to focus on both the internal lives of the play’s characters and the external elements of the play’s structure. In this illuminating, engaging, and accessible handbook, the art of dramatic interpretation and the craft of working with actors are integrated into a single, unified method.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"More engaging than a textbook, Thinking Like a Director is a concise and highly practical guide to the craft. It's a required reading for young stage and film directors, students, and anyone who wants to know what a skillful professional director does."--Gilbert Gates, Producing Director of the Geffen Playhouse and Producer of the Academy Awards Show

“It’s rare for a ‘how-to’ book to be at the same time so practical and so literate.”--Robert Brustein, Artistic Director, American Repertory Theatre

“Thinking Like a Director helps fill the void of practical handbooks that are available to theater directors. It is smart and lucidly written and should prove to be an invaluable guidebook for students and emerging directors.”--Donald Margulies

“Bloom’s deeply instructional and encouraging primer takes the mystery out of the art of directing without taking out the joy. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”--Mariette Hartley

“A lucid, concise, and admirably undogmatic manual for aspirant directors, from which writers, actors, and ordinary theatergoers will also learn much about the complex business of putting on plays.” --David Lodge

“With a relaxed, informal style, Thinking Like a Director captures the experience of stage directing as well as any book I can think of. Its section on working with living playwrights is a welcome addition to the literature, useful to playwrights as much as directors, and Bloom’s writing on language will be highly informative for actors, too.”—Arthur Kopit

"I very much enjoyed Michael Bloom's Thinking Like a Director. A taste for directing is like a taste for pickled herring--those that like it seem to like it a lot. For those who've tried it and liked it, I think this book has some pretty good ideas."—David Mamet

About the Author

In addition to directing throughout the United States and Japan, Michael Bloom is head of directing at the University of Texas at Austin. His writing on the stage has appeared in The New York Times and American Theatre magazine. Bloom directed the premiere of Donald Margulies's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Dinner with Friends at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, and he also directed premieres by Don DeLillo, Ariel Dorfman, David Hare, and David Lodge. He won the Elliott Norton Award for Directing for his production of Gross Indecency, and was nominated for a Drama Desk for Sight Unseen at Manhattan Theatre Club and the Orpheum Theatre. He lives in Austin, Texas.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber; 1st edition (October 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571199941
• ISBN-13: 978-0571199945
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #79,532 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bloom covers the areas missed by the directing books of old, August 5, 2002

By 

R. King (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Thinking Like a Director: A Practical Handbook (Paperback)

Having seen so many copies of this book being tossed around on campus, I was surprised to see that no one had stopped to review this book, yet. And in keeping with the practical, no nonsense approach of the book, I will keep it brief.

This book is quickly catching on, and is becoming a textbook for many graduate classes in directing.

Most directing textbooks I have read don't deal with certain areas of directing that I find to be most important. Bloom also adresses this in the book, that many books and graduate training programs do not deal with some of the most practical aspects of directing. Old texts have since become museum pieces, restricting the job of director to staging, pace and rhythm issues. One has the idea of a director reading his newspaper in the back row letting the actors magically discover their performance without any help.

Bloom quickly destroys this myth, and presents the director as a crucial link in the process. His internal/external approach, which is a little difficult to sum up in a short review, is an efficient and effective way of approaching a set text, ensuring truthful, committed work from the actors, without sacrificing the requirements of pacing, staging, and clear storytelling. Bloom suggests many practical means for finding one's way into the work, and developing an effective storytelling technique, through common terminology that most actors and directors can respond to. As a graduate student in acting, I certainly wish more directors had a chance to pick up and peruse this book.

Included are also sections on working with designers, structuring your rehearsal space and time, developing rehearsal strategies, approaches for technical rehearsals, etc. It covers everything, even after the show is up and running and you are moving on to the next project.

A simple, no nonsense guide. It covers area missed by the others. Applause to Michael Bloom for such a great book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A useful textbook for students and teachers, December 3, 2002

By 

Michael P. Nolan (Sarasota, Fl) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Thinking Like a Director: A Practical Handbook (Hardcover)

I was required to read this book for a directing class on the Masters level. I read the back, there was a nice quote from Donald Margulies: "It is smart and lucidly written and should prove to be an invaluable guidebook for students and emerging directors." I thought that it would be a good idea to read the book with that in mind, as a potential textbook.

As a student of the graduate level, even one who has never directed, this was pretty easy reading. There is something to be said for going back to the basics. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the theoretical that we forget the fundamentals, and it's good to go back and review and recall things we had forgotten. With that in mind, the book did open my thoughts to different ways of thinking about a scene or a play. As primarily an actor and playwright, I found that the book illuminated examples of how my own work can be improved by thinking about things in a new way. I have to feel that the book would have the same effect for a director. Yes, it covers basic things that have already been covered in various classes, but it offers a different side to thinking. If I were to start on a directing career, I would take away two very important lessons from the book. First, I would concentrate on creating an "approach" to a play, rather than a "concept." "Approach" offers a path that can potentially change and accommodate the needs of the production, whereas "concept" locks the ideas in a narrow vision and forces the play to accommodate the concept. Secondly, I would attempt to see the production from two different viewpoints: the internal view and the external view. Bloom believes that maintaining this balance is the key to successful directing.

As a teacher I would recommend this to an undergraduate. I find that the book takes complex concepts and manages to define them in clear, concise terms, something that I have come to appreciate this semester. Bloom takes the time to specify his terms and define them in non-confusing ways. A lot of the time the lessons serve as reminders. "Don't forget to do this..." These terms reinforce ideas that may have been taught to them and may enable students to have a basic understanding in which to facilitate a classroom discussion to further illuminate the point

Once again, I liked Bloom's substitution of the work "approach" for "concept." Essentially the idea is the same but the phrase "concept" gives a feeling on some esoteric idea that every aspect of the production must accommodate. "Approach" suggests a method of dealing with the production, but doesn't force conformity. It denotes a direction and has a connotation of flexibility. Also as I mentioned before Bloom suggests a duel-perspective approach: external and internal. What Bloom gives the reader is a basic process of creating a production while at the same time allowing a flexible approach to the production itself, for no two plays require the same approach. Bloom gives suggestions to deal with different situations or problems that may crop up, but not a rigid methodology. He also suggests ways to prevent problems from arising by dealing with them in pre-production before they explode into a crisis.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite book on directing, July 5, 2007

By 

Martin Nemko (Oakland, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Thinking Like a Director: A Practical Handbook (Paperback)

I've read about a dozen books on directing, and this is my favorite because it gets to the essence of what a director must do to bring out the most from a script and the actors. Sure, other books are breezier, but if you're serious about creating a great play, reading this book should be Job One, especially if you're not dealing with top-of-the-line professional actors. Yes, Bill Ball's book gives you a great sense of the kind of persona that works well as a director but his largely "less-is-more" advice works far better with the top actors he directed at American Conservatory Theatre than the solid but not magnificent actors that serious community theatre directors like myself work with.