A Director's Place

I wasn't sure whether or not I should write about this...

Then I remembered my own words... "I intend to be bold, brash and above all, honest with myself and with my subject." Honesty.

Honestly last night ended badly. The actors were great, it was more what happened with the artistic director.

After the run the artistic director approached me and told me some moments that she felt weren't natural in the blocking and they needed to be fixed now. Okay, I can see where she gets that. With the way that I block it comes naturally out of the character; I read impulses and create the blocking out of what the character is going through. It is heavily dependent on having actors that have strong characters. This is one reason I spend so much time of establishing relationships and improving scenes before I get to the blocking stage. So usually if something isn't looking right on stage it has to do with the character not being defined enough.

I worked with two of the actors helping them to define and make their characters more specific, which then in turn fixed the blocking problems that she had mentioned. Cool, the play is better off for her pointing those things out, but I didn't appreciate her disagreeing with me in front of my actors. I let it go though.

Well, this is where things got a little uncomfortable with me. The AD decided that she was going to reset all of my sound levels for the sound cues. She said they needed to be louder and be more shocking to the audience. She just started resetting all the levels WAY higher than I would have set them. The sound cues that I've come up with are meant to be an underscore. I am no means a sound designer, but I have been around the theatre long enough to know what I want and what I don't and I was the one who came up with the sound design for the show. It's not great, but I do know what I'm trying to achieve.

In my aesthetic for this show, where things are subtle and each audience member walks out of the theatre with a different experience, having the levels set higher would jar the audience in a way that I do not want. The sound design is meant to be subtle, something you would hear in the back of your head, but not be sure that you heard it. Kind of like when you are in a real haunted house, not some spooky Halloween one.

On top of this, the SFX that I have are from the internet, on a burned CD, on an in-home mini boombox thing, not a professional sound system. When the sound is turned up too loud, the speakers buzz in that bad their gonna blow way. Not the impression I want to give my audience.

I felt very insulted by the fact that even though I said things were too loud she told the stage manager/board op to turn it up anyways. I'm frustrated because I feel like the show now has someone else's stamp on it. I believe that art is a collaborative process, but in the end it is my name and my reputation on the line because I was hired as the director. Having my AD push me is great, it's a way of collaborating, but being criticized and then pushed aside when my vision of the show I was hired to direct is not.

So with all this bitching what am I going to do? I'm going to be the bigger person (at least I hope this is what being the bigger person is in this situation) and let the show run tonight with the loud soundFX. I will give it a chance, I have a feeling I won't like it, but I'm going to be open to it. If I feel that the show becomes campy, or the soundFX are overbearing and become the focus, then they will go back down. I will fight for my vision if I have to. The show I'm trying to create is not a campy "Halloween" show, it's not a haunted house. It's a show about a girl coming to terms with the death of her father. Yes there are ghosts in the show. Yes the house they live in is haunted. But like I said before, this show isn't a haunted house, it's a play.

Thanks for reading my rant. I'd like to know what you think though, respond with your comments.


UPDATE - So after the preview last night (and audience members laughing at SFX) I talked with the AD. It wasn't pretty, but we came to a compromise... We're turning them down a little bit, not as much as I want, but that's what compromising is about. Basically the issue all arises from the fundamental difference in how we see the presence of the house. (This part will make more sense if you see the show...) I see it as there, alive and in the background. She sees it as a presence on stage. That's what is causing the conflict and since we can both be very strong willed women, it causes us to butt heads. Such is life though.

Things are a little awkward, but whatever. I felt like I had to stand up for the show I was trying to create.