module specification

Directing 2 advances previously acquired skills in Directing One and Workshop Leadership. It allows you the opportunity to explore your own directorial vision and apply skills learnt in practice. In this case directing refers to text-based work. The practical work is placed within the context of critical theory, as previously explored in Performance, Art and Film Ideas 1 and 2.

This module will develop and apply directorial skills and facilitate the acquisition of new abilities specifically related to production and organisation. It will give you the opportunity to apply skills and knowledges to a fully produced extract from a play text and provide the opportunity to imagine a vision for a production of a play. It will encourage you to pursue individual research into theatre practitioners and cultural theory in the context of your own directed extract, to examine critically the process of directing and to encourage self-evaluation. The final showing of work will activate your skills in leadership, facilitation, imaginative and creative skills and inspire self-motivation and responsibility.

Prerequisite: Directing One SM5074 or Workshop Leadership SM5073

Available for Study Abroad? NO

The work undertaken on this module will be orientated around several selected play texts from which the students may choose extracts to direct. Initial workshops will explore theory-based research and practical work drawing on the methodologies of selected directors and other practitioners in relation to each of these texts.  You will then examine and critical evaluate the role of the director as ‘author’ in dealing with text-based work and place their own ideas in this context (LO1,LO3).

You will focus on your relationship with the performers, designer, lighting designer, sound designer, technicians, stage management etc. as a means to achieving your artistic vision (LO1,LO4).

With guidance from tutors, you will take responsibility for directing and producing a short extract from one of the set play texts to full production.  You will draw on cultural and critical theories to create your vision and support your rehearsal process (LO2, LO4).

Scheduled teaching provides the guidance and foundation to ensure that independent study is effective in addressing the module’s learning outcomes and assessment tasks.

In-class activity makes use of varied student-centred approaches such as active, flipped and blended learning, so that a range of learning strategies is deployed, and individual learning styles are accommodated. Information is provided through a range of means and sources to minimise and remove barriers to successful progress through the module. The course team seeks to embed the University’s Education for Social Justice Framework in fostering learning that is enjoyable, accessible, relevant and that takes account of the social and cultural context and capital of its students.

Activities foster peer-to-peer community building and support for learning. Reflective learning is promoted through interim formative feedback points that ask students to reflect on their progress, receive help where they identify the opportunity for improvement in learning strategies and outcomes and make recommendations to themselves for future development. Throughout the module, students build a body of work, including written reflections on progress and achievement.

The School’s programme of employability events and embedded work-based learning within the curriculum supports students’ personal and career development planning. Through these initiatives, students are increasingly able, as they progress from year to year, to understand the professional environment of their disciplines, the various opportunities available to them, and how to shape their learning according to their ambitions.

On completion of this module you will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

LO1: Work through a process integrating actors, stage technologies, and technicians whilst working to a strict deadline to convey your ideas to an audience.

Subject Specific Skills

LO2: Apply theatre workshop skills in rehearsal processes, to a wide and diverse community of collaborators, to achieve a desired performance outcome.

Transferable Skills

LO3: Demonstrate effective leadership through organisation, clarity of communication, respectful conduct, and dynamic problem solving.

Cognitive Intellectual Abilities

LO4: Critically evaluate the role of the director in generating meaning through performance and the tools available to achieve a desired audience experience.

Assessment in the module is designed to extend the principles of work-related learning upon which its curriculum has been constructed. It is also designed to encourage students to draw from their personal identities and creative interests to generate work that is distinct to themselves as individuals, and representative of the communities and cultures that have informed their perspectives. Students are therefore assessed continuously on their work in the module, to consider the full breadth of their work across the semester, and on the final outcome of their project work to reflect the industry-based expectation that a rehearsal process will culminate in a successful public performance.

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