How To Read A Play Script Analysis For Directors – Damon Kiely (1)

But the other way to do casting, is to see who walks into the room, and how do I maximize that. So it becomes a vastly different production than might otherwise have been done and it’s not the production in your head, but—if I was I was going to direct the production in my head, why don’t I just write a fucking novel and be done with it?

Garcés hopes actors will surprise him in auditions, to have his own analysis of the play turned upside down. I had this experience when I auditioned actors for A Streetcar Named Desire at DePaul. The fiercest, rawest actor who came in for Stanley was African American, certainly not the Polack described by Tennessee Williams.

I also saw great African American actors for the couple who live upstairs from Stella and Stanley. An African American actress captured the required sensuality of Blanche’s sister Stella. Hands down, the best Mitch and Blanche were two Caucasian actors. I saw an opportunity to highlight the class differences in the play— through the lens of race. The story we came upon in the rehearsal room was that Blanche was white, her sister Stella was African American, and Stella had fled Belle Reve to an all-black neighborhood in New Orleans.

This wasn’t the story I’d set out to tell, but it didn’t invalidate the analysis I’d done. Blanche still held the higher status. She still looked down on Stanley as a brute. Mitch could easily play the role of Blanche’s savior. Would every twist and turn of the story make sense? What happened to each scene when actors were of different races?

I wouldn’t know until I got in the rehearsal room. As I started researching this book, I thought directors completed all their analyses before meeting with designers or casting actors. I’ve learned the process is much more fluid.

How to Read a Play provides a broad range of tools and methods for reading a play text, exploring a series of possible approaches for those who hope to bring it to life on the stage. The work done before the first rehearsal, preliminary reading, or even before the cast has met can be crucial to the success of a production. How to Read a Play provides essential guidance on how to analyze, understand, and interpret a play for performance. The book is divided into four sections: • lessons from the past, detailing approaches from Aristotle through to Stanislavski and Brecht and establishing the models and methods that underpin much of directors’ work today; • a survey of current practices, including interviews and observation of practical work; this section is divided according to the director’s tasks: digging into the script, preparing for design and casting, and gearing up to rehearse; • reading a play without a script, considering the analysis of non- traditional plays and texts, and offering guidance on devising work; and • a workbook of play analysis, outlining exercises based on the survey of current practices and designed as a practical guide to analyzing a chosen text.

The goal of How to Read a Play is to get students to dig deeply into the text for meaning and author intent and for what will work on stage. Having come to understand and experiment with a range of models, readers will be equipped to create their own brand of analysis. Damon Kiely is a professional director and writer and professor of directing and acting for DePaul University’s Theatre School. How to Read a Play This page intentionally left blank How to Read a Play Script Analysis for Directors Damon Kiely First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Damon Kiely The right of Damon Kiely to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Kiely, Damon.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: f31ecdc25049e893
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 3,540,823 bytes (3.377 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9780415748223, 9780415748230, 9781315642642
• Pages: 218
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 330.43 minutes
• Total Words: 66,085
• Total Characters: 398,205
• Average Words per Page: 303.14
• Average Characters per Page: 1826.63

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