Pretty self-explanatory. I’m taking a class next year where the only assignment is “direct a play.” We plan for the first semester and cast, direct and perform the second. Also, nothing terribly controversial. This is highschool, people. So, any suggestions?
“Our Town” has been horribly overdone for years, but is still a decent play, involving lots of characters.
Check the following for a list of high school plays.
click here and here
First off, one act or more?
Second, consider your cast capabilities. How many individuals can you expect to draw from? What kind of talent is available? Next, if this is for a grade, what kind of play does the grader absolutely hate? Next, what are your set limitations. And finally, what kind of plays do you enjoy?
All of these have to be taken into account. For instance, both Our Town and R.U.R demand a good-sized cast. If you only have about five or six cast members that you can tap, you might look at Deathtrap or Barefoot in the Park. If you are even more limited, you might look at Sleuth.
In regard to my final question, I feel that a great deal of enjoyment of plays comes from the understanding of those plays. If you don’t enjoy a specific type of play, you might well not understand it, so how can you expect to do a good job directing something that you don’t understand? You cannot expect to do a good job of directing, let us say, Our Town if you don’t really like a minimalist stage and folksey dialogue about love and death.
Your job as the director is to have the vision of what the play is communicating and then to pass that vision on to the audience via the actors.
What I am saying is, “Give us a bit more information, so we can give you truly helpful suggestions.”
There are some very experienced theatrical types on this board that you can tap, but don’t leave them in the dark as to what they are working with.
TV
Can anyone pass as a small blond girl? Bad Seed is horribly fun.
I recommend Flowers for Algernon or The Portrait of Dorian Grey
Before you start, I’d suggest David Ball’s Backwards and Forwards: A Technical Manual For Reading Plays. It’s a short, precise guide to breaking down a play for directors, actors, designers etc.
If you’re doing one-acts, Tennessee Williams has a lot of good work. His plays were recommended to us in my intro stage direction class at the UW Madison years ago.
another thing to take into consideration is the male-female ratio, and how you can use that to your advantage. for example, if this school usually draws upon more girls than guys, you might not want to do anything that requires too many males.
also, how busy are the students going to be? how much time are you going to have at your disposal for rehearsing?
my high school is very small and our stage space is microscopic, so we always put on plays that take place with one set and a small cast. i highly reccommend from personal experience agatha christie’s ‘and then there were none’ and steve martin’s ‘picasso at the lapin agile.’ also anything tennessee williams or arthur miller.
This a high-brow, but… ANYTHING by Shakespeare!
For a small-cast one act, William Saroyan’s “Hello Out There” might be nice. I wouldn’t consider it controversial, but I’m not your high school.
Titus Andronicus or Coriolanus. Or maybe the musical based on the life of Steven Hawking.
Or the one about Jack the Ripper.