Playwrights and Directing
Posted by Gabriel Greene on 2/22/2007One of our subscribers recently emailed us to ask,
“Why is it that so many if not most playwrights do not direct their own plays? The playwright may be around when his work is being produced, but he is not in charge of the stage. I would think that the playwright must have a vision of what he wants to see on stage but he is almost never the director.”
Well, one quick answer is that many playwrights do not possess, or do not feel they possess, adequate directing skills – in much the same way that many directors do not write plays, or that many costume designers do not act. Second, and perhaps more importantly, theatre is by its nature a collaborative process; writing for the stage means embracing this spirit of collaboration, allowing one’s own vision to be synergized through (and, one would hope, enhanced by) the combined contributions of a director, actors and designers. For writers with more tyrannical leanings, prose seems the better way to go.
There are notable exceptions to this trend, even within our ensemble. Frank Galati, for example, routinely directs his own adaptations, which have included Haruki Murakami’s after the quake, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. Tina Landau directed her play Space here, and – without letting the cat out of the bag – another ensemble member will be directing his own play in our 2007-08 season, which we will be announcing soon.
I’d like to open this question up to those of you reading this and ask for your opinions and personal experiences, both on the subject of why playwrights tend not to direct their own work, or why (on those occasions that they do) do they?