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Sense of Direction: Some Observations on the Art of Directing |
Author: William Ball
Published: 1984-09 |
List price: $19.95
Our price: $17.95
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As of: December 01st, 2008 01:31:07 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Required reading for a class
Good book! Highly recommended by the instructor of our director's class for community theatre.
 A priceless beginner's (or not beginner's) book!
This book has opened my eyes to a greater view of the audition process as an actor. It has also awakened a fire in me to direct. I am planning on directing my first play this coming Fall, and I really feel prepared with this book and the class I'm taking now. A great text for discussion for directing classes.
Engagingly written.
Sobering Testament
SENSE OF DIRECTION is a text every director will want to take a look at, even if, years later, some of Ball's advice seems dated (or too expensive-he was not a man to shy away from large budgets and extended rehearsals if he thought them necessary.) In person he could be rather abrasive, to the point of being ridiculous, like Ross Hunter in a caftan. But on the pages of his book, he exhibits a warm, spiritual nature, almost like a priest. Since the days of the Chekhov dynasty, the director has of course assumed near divine proportions in the theater and you get the feeling Ball enjoyed that role, but he is often very courteous towards his actors. He even goes so far as to say that "one of the director's most important qualifications is knowing when NOT to interrupt his actors."
He was a professional director and the book covers every contingency from "first reading to opening night." Some of Ball's advice is not going to help you if you are an amateur. He gives the advice that actors, like cattle, can't hold too many ideas in their heads at one time so he urges the director to come up with a shorthand of small verbs or nouns with which the actor might make himself aware at all times. "Seduce," for example, might be his direction to the actor playing Cleopatra. Sounds elementary, but it works! After all, he was the man who boasted that he discovered Annette Bening.
He notes that often, for the first ten minutes of a play, the audience finds itself uncomfortable, with a marked realization of the artificiality of theater. They are sitting in a dark room and watching a bunch of people all lit up pretending to be real. As directors our job is to make those first ten minutes fly by so that the dream can swamp the audience and take them along with us on our journey. In passages like this one, he writes beautifully. Within a year or two after completing his book he was summarily fired from ACT and not long after that he had left this world for another, behind the curtains of life. Sad ending for what was once a glorious if eccentric career.
 Some great stuff
William Ball's "Sense of Direction" has some excellent information for those involed in, or thinking about becoming involved in, directing. However, Mr. Ball is coming from the world of professional actors and sometimes his advise is not applicable for directors involved in educational theatre.
An impeccable and indespensable document
Mr. William Ball, the former artistic director and founder of The American Conservatory Theatre in San Fransisco, boils down almost forty years of teaching, acting and directing experience into possibly the most effective,educational and practical document about directing. I shudder to use the word text book as that term implies dry academia- an approach which leads to the the death of the theatre- but really this book is indespensable to any theatre director. Ball lays out in a logical, simple and jargon free manner the nuts and bolts of building a balanced right and left brained community which has complete and utter access to the creative impulse. Everything in Ball's book is transferable, practical (sorry about using that term again but it is true)and impeccably rendered. For any theatre director, I strongly suggest purchasing this book as the foundation of any library. Five out of five stars.
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