“Oh the Thinks You Can Think”: A Reflection on My First Directing Experience

I directed my first show with my wonderful co-director Joseph Konkle in the spring of 2018. Here is a brief reflection on the ups and downs of my very first time putting a production on its feet.

Directing Seussical, Jr. at Northside Middle School as a part of the Theatre Education Production Season was simultaneously immense fun and an incredible amount of work. My co-director, Joseph Konkle, and I worked very hard to provide the best experience we could for the students in our show, but we are well aware that there are things that could have gone better. From set design fiascos to shipping snafus, we had quite a time putting this show on its feet. It was an incredibly fulfilling learning experience, and I would give just about anything to do it again with that same wonderful group of kids. Although we made many mistakes along the way, as every new director does, I think that our production of Seussical, Jr. was a really good effort.

Relationships with Administration are Essential

In my analysis of our work as a whole, I will start with the things that we could have done better. As first-time directors, we had our fair share of blunders trying to get this production on its feet. Our first problem was not starting off on particularly good footing with the principal. If I were to do this all over again, I would make it an absolute priority to get in there ahead of time and get to know Mr. Grimm. As full time students rather than staff or faculty members, we were unable to be in the building every day which meant we did not know how to go about clearing things with the main office and principal which became quite a stumbling block. Having a stronger relationship with him from the beginning of the rehearsal process might have helped us to avoid a few of the issues that we ran into further down the road.

Not having a good relationship with the principal made it difficult for us to advocate for our cast, our show, and our ideas throughout the entire production process. On several occasions, we showed up at the school for after school rehearsal only to find out that we could not use the auditorium that day. We had a faculty liaison but they either were not

aware or did not notify us of these problems with our rehearsal schedule.

We also ended up having to completely tear down our nearly finished set, redesign our set, and re-block everything we had already set because our set designs were hand built and not approved by the office. This was an incredibly frustrating interruption in our process as all school sets are hand built by the teachers, and there was not an expectation set prior to our show that set designs are to be approved by the office.

In the process of cultivating that relationship with Mr. Grimm, we would have been able to include him in discussions about our rehearsal schedule and set designs. There is no way of knowing if this would have actually solved these problems, but it is definitely something I prioritize in the future. Regardless of the result, I think that doing that little bit of work up front and clearing things with Mr. Grimm could have saved us the headache.

Shaking Off the Day

Beyond having a working relationship with our principal, I also learned a valuable lesson about working with middle school actors. Middle school students are a very interesting age group to work with in a theatre setting. They are a lot of fun because they have a lot of energy, but they can also be frustrating to work with because of all that excess energy. We spent a lot of time asking the cast to be quiet that could have been spent rehearsing; in future, I will be certain to block out a period of time at the beginning of each rehearsal just to help the kids get their “wiggles” out (that’s what my family calls it when people get squirmy).

This is actually something that I have put into practice in the two productions I directed after this show, 7 Minutes and Murder in the Knife Room, with a lot of success! When students were able to do short activities that allowed them to shake off the day and refocus their energy into the work of rehearsal, we had a more productive day. I will never underestimate the power of a good warm up.

Understudy Miscommunication

Joe and I also learned a very important lesson about casting from this process. At auditions, we had a student walk into the audition room who said, very loudly, and to no one in particular, “I really want to be the Cat.” This immediately drew our attention, and we paid very close attention when she read for the Cat. In the end, although her reading of the part was decent, there was a student that was better suited to the role. In order to give the student who had expressed interest a chance to learn and rehearse (and perform in dress rehearsals), Joe and I decided that we would allow this student to be the understudy for the Cat.

Unfortunately, I do not think we were clear enough in communicating the responsibilities of an understudy to this student: that they would learn the lines and the music on their own and pay attention to the character’s blocking and movement while in rehearsal in order to learn the entirety of the part with some assistance from the directors (but not much).

When the student tried to perform the role in a rehearsal during tech week, it became clear to us that they had done none of those things. In hindsight, I realize that this was not truly the student’s fault but rather our own. Middle school students do not automatically know the responsibilities of an understudy, and we did not communicate them well to this particular student. We also had given her the understudy position because she was an 8th grader that was doing her very first show. We were motivated in this decision far more by emotion than logic. That is not to say that emotion has no role in casting, but I can assure you that I will take more care to apply reason as well as emotion to casting from now on.

Creative Problem-Solving Won the Day

Despite all the bumps along the way, I think Joe and I did a lot of really good work in our production of Seussical, Jr. Although we had to contend with several issues, as mentioned before, we were resilient and creative problem-solvers.

• We did not let delayed scripts keep us from rehearsing.

• We made the hallway (and sometimes gymnasium) the most believable Jungle of Nool when the auditorium was unavailable to us, which was far more often than we would have liked.

• When the school told us we had to take down our set, we did not cancel the show, although that was an option available to us. We decided that this show was too important to ourselves and the kids to be cancelled for something so trivial in the grand scheme of things (though a very big deal in that moment).

• We cast a wonderful group of kids that adapted beautifully to all the changes we had to make, and we figured out how to make four boxes, four flats, and a slide into the Jungle of Nool and Whoville.

Throughout the entire process, Joe and I approached the problems we had to solve with cool heads, ready to tackle them in order to get this production on stage. We were well-organized and focused on providing the best experience for the kids as possible. Joe and I were not perfect directors by any stretch of the imagination, but we did everything we could to help an amazing group of students tell a wonderful story about being exactly who you are and never losing sight of what could be if you’d only let yourself think.