Direction home
The question often arises about whether the Twin Cities is a good place to live and work in theater. I always say yes. Whether you are an actor, director, playwright, or designer, the Twin Cities theater scene is good. If you want to be a movie star, go to Hollywood. If you want to direct a Broadway smash, go to New York. But if you want to develop your craft and build a lifetime of rich theatrical experiences, stay here. We can put you to work.
I’ve also been asked that question specifically about directing. Is it good to be in the Twin Cities if you want to work as a director? Yes. Because in the Twin Cities, an aspiring director can continually practice all the elements I feel have built the foundation of my 18 years of directing experience.
Directing is a craft. It’s an artistically expressive craft, but mainly it’s just a craft like cabinet making and gourmet cooking. You have to know how to do it before you can scale the heights of expression. I was enormously lucky to develop my craft as a high school theater director. The primary objective of the high school theater director is getting the show to happen on opening night without accidents or tears. That’s it. It really makes no difference to anyone what your vision is or what your take is on the piece. No. Just get the kids facing the right direction and not trampling the scenery. And make sure they are filling their roles with every ounce of talent and skill they possess.
After leaving the high school, I served as an assistant director at the Guthrie for four shows and learned how to make a bit of a name for myself as a solo performer. I also cofounded Minnesota Shakespeare Project, which delivered educational tours around Minnesota and produced a festival in Grand Marais. Minnesota Shakespeare Project allowed me to continue developing as a director and to become more artistically self-assured in addition to teaching me about staying on schedule and keeping the actors from impaling themselves on the swords.
Only then was I able to step up to the challenge of tackling more visible work with the highest caliber local actors and production teams. Without knowing how to work with Equity rules or freelance designers, without any familiarity with the press or the trust of the theater community, I wouldn’t have been able to break in. My advice to aspiring directors in this area is to stay here, learn your craft, and take every opportunity no matter how unsexy it might seem at first.
The Twin Cities offers plenty of opportunities. Directors don’t need to have a bold political stance or dazzling visual aesthetic to break into the scene. They need to be respected, known, and good at what they do. Here’s how you do that. (It takes time and lots of effort, by the way.)
Act. Whether you’re a brilliant Ophelia or just a chorus dancer with no rhythm, get in a few shows. If you want to be a good director, it is absolutely critical that you understand acting from the actor’s point of view. Some directors disagree with this because they consider themselves no good as actors. Doesn’t matter. Go out to some remote community theater far from where you live and act. You need to know what it feels like to hear the audience and be inside the stage picture. You need to know how annoying it is when the director doesn’t give you any useful notes or mismanages rehearsal call times. If you’re already an actor/director, keep at it. Anyone who tells you you’ll have to choose one or the other simply doesn’t have an imagination. And the great thing about the Twin Cities is that you can find a million options for shows to audition for at almost any time—if you keep an open mind.
Listen to the audience. This is particularly easy to do in the Twin Cities because we have such a lively, articulate audience base that sees many types of shows in a single season. Listen to them. Listen more closely to them than to other theater people who saw your show and were blindly enamored or passive-aggressively dismissive of it. Listen to what average audience members say and think about it because, in the end, our work doesn’t exist without them. Twin Cities audiences tend to be smart, savvy, and up for a challenge. It strangles all of us if we ignore them when they think our shows aren’t connecting. Listen to them—they love to talk to you.
Get to know the big cheeses. We all know there are a handful of notable theaters in the Twin Cities where we’d love to work. For directors, this is particularly tricky. You can’t audition, you can’t submit a draft, and you can’t fill out an application. The artistic directors must see your work and they must like it. This sounds simple enough, right? It isn’t. You need to pay constant attention to this. And these artistic directors are busy. They’re going to come see shows directed by people they know, and even then it will be once in every ten requests. So get on it now. Find a way to have coffee with them or an informational interview or even possibly an assistant directorship. Build a real and honest relationship in whatever interaction you have with them. No one appreciates a climber, so relax and find something you both have in common and see if there’s a spark. It’s sort of like dating. You have to like each other for it to work.
And there are many more steps. In my opinion, they all boil down to learning the craft and building a career one piece at a time. There really aren’t many fast tracks to success for directors. It’s best to look at the journey as one of continual discovery and growth, no matter where you’re working at the moment. For this, there is no better place for directors than the Twin Cities. ❦
