Editorial

This editorial was largely conceived in New York, where we, the editors of this issue, were, so to speak, in training: as observers in rehearsal (as Adam Ledger elaborates in a ‘Speaking Image’ contribution), and in the demands of rehearsal as an ever-changing, ongoing training (Avra Sidiropoulou’s postcard). Having experienced moments of extreme exhilaration as well as frustration during our own experiences of directing, and as teachers of directing ourselves, we again reflected upon why this special issue feels so topical and necessary.

Immersed in the challenges of training others in what is both meant to be an art and a full-time profession – and within a ruthlessly competitive and increasingly complex market and contexts for making work - we talked again about the roles a director assumes. The figure of the director and the practice of directing seems to enjoy a kind of elusiveness of definition. In contrast to the long history and shared knowledge of acting techniques and performer training, how the work of the director might be defined seems challenging. And where the director spends most of their time, rehearsal, has been considered a ‘hidden world’ (Letzler Cole, Citation1992). Direction goes on behind closed doors and is made up of a shifting combination of, perhaps, dramaturgical, literary, acting, collaborative, scenographic, stage- and personnel-management, and financial concerns.

Given the ambiguity around what directing might be, the training of directors seems even more obscure. Whilst there is burgeoning publication on theatre directing, comprising scholarly work, practical guides and books by directors themselves (recently, for example, the Great European Theatre Directors series (Bloomsbury Methuen); Boenisch, Citation2015; Dunderdale, Citation2021; Simonsen, Citation2017; and by us: Ledger, Citation2019; Sidiropoulou, Citation2018), director training as a topic appears neglected. In scholarly terms, directing is often dealt with as uncritically accepted directorial technique(s), methodology, and, predominantly, a discussion of productions. In the discourses of directing, a lack of definition of directors and directing has, further, given rise to the many, always-provisional notions of the director. We suggest that the opposite is in fact the case: it is not so much that directing cannot be defined, it is rather that there is a plurality of definitions.

As can be seen in the contributions to this volume, directing is a complex practice of situational leadership, which shifts according to the ideas, needs and circumstances of the moment. Questions immediately arise: how can we discuss how to train for, in and despite such complexity? How can we best prepare and train for the sometimes extraordinary aesthetics of the work yet the sheer difficulty of the profession? What kind of diverse forms of competence, education and personality traits could training encompass? In a changing world, what should director training comprise?