10 Notes on Being a High School Director

Being a High School Director:

Photo by Kal Visuals on Unsplash

1. Never underestimate your actors' potential.

2. Always try to find SOMETHING an actor is doing well even if everything they are doing seems destined for failure.

3. During rehearsals, the actors perform for you so make them KNOW you are paying attention to them. During the show, they still perform for you even though the audience believes they are performing for them and the actors believe they are doing it for themselves.

4. Allow actors to feel out their roles. BUT some people need more coaching. Be flexible and intuit what an individual needs. Be specific in giving hooks. (I am working on getting better at this).

5. I have not figured out rehearsal pacing yet. When do I tell them to be off book? When do I yell at them for not knowing their lines? What is the fine balance between sternness and generosity?

6. When there is little less than one week before showtime, work with what you got. Don't add anything more.

7. SHOW the LOVE

8. The actors internalize your comments so choose your words carefully.

9. When directing use VERBS. For example: "Look Angry" is a bad stage direction: instead: "Prowl around the stage like you are a tiger in a cage" is more specific and doable.

10. It will all come together (albeit, a few SNAFUs)

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List: 31 signs your significant other don't love you no mo'

Unrequited love sucks.

1. Jacking off in the study is his only crime of passion.

2. You cheat on him and when he finds out he says, "I am so glad you've found someone special!"

3. You begin to realize why your relationship began with an NSA agreement.

4. The part of his body you know most intimately is the back of his head.

5. "I'm hungry" is the extent of his emotional vocabulary.

6. When you explain to the kids you're getting a divorce they ask with a straight face, "Wait, aren't you divorced already?"

7. What you thought were text messages to you from him are actually ads from a 1-900 number.

8. You realize one day you forgot what he looks like because he seldom looks at you.

9. The only time he uses the word "moist" is during dessert.

10. The only time you can cop a feel is when he's sleeping.

11. The last time you slept together was during an emergency evacuation.

12. The couple next door tends to wake you up on a Friday night.

13. The emotional energy you share together is as dead as two corpses in a nursing home.

14. It is one thing to forget your birthday or even an anniversary but last night he even forgot your name!

15. Discovering his pornography stash, you realize none of the models even remotely look like you.

16. The only way you can get him to relieve sexual tension is to say,"But, it's for health reasons!"

17. Every time you want to have sex, he thinks you want a baby.

18. Or: he thinks you are checking his prostate.

19. The last time he said "fine," he was angry.

20. He talks about you in the past tense.

21. And he refers to you in the third person.

22. You get more attention from the dog than him.

23. When you go to grab his pole he reacts like you are his physician: "Is it that bad, doctor?"

24. When you plan a romantic vacation he says, "Have fun with your friends!"

25. He seldom gets your jokes.

26. The last time you played around was on the first date.

28. The only text message you've gotten recently did say, "I Love You" But it was quickly followed by, "Sorry, I meant to send this to my sister."!

29. You desperately find ways to say goodbye so you can at least get a kiss.

30. You come home with a hatchet in your head and he wonders if you got a haircut.

31. The love letter you wrote to him is still unopened in the mailbox.

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image credit: Library of Congress Picture Archives

Aphorism With Image: "Hemmed"

I write when I am hemmed into a corner. Profile on me: sitting at my school desk surrounded by papers.

image: M.C. Escher, Drawing Hands, 1948, lithograph, 11 1/8 x 13 1/8 inches

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