SDC JOURNAL PEER-REVIEWED SECTION
In this issue of the SDC Journal Peer-Reviewed Section (PRS), we focus on training for directors and choreographers, both in institutions of higher learning and as ongoing professional development at any stage of one’s career. This interest in training is central to the PRS mission, which was founded to build and fortify bridges between scholarship and practice, the academy and the professions. The book review and essay in this issue center on this mission. In the past five years, widespread cultural changes during the pandemic and powerful movements for racial justice, equity, and ethics have inspired shifts in awareness that radically impacted the field of theatre as well as directors’ and choreographers’ roles within it. Training to develop new skills and to refine cultural competencies is increasingly necessary. The changing field and professions require new ways of working and collaborating to foster more equitable and ethical spaces, to build racial justice and gender equity, and to include diversity of ability, amongst other vital areas of growth in theatre. In a special editorial essay, PRS Co-editor Emily A. Rollie draws on her combined expertise as a director, scholar of directing, intimacy director, and teacher to contextualize the value of intimacy training as a key part of directing training. Dr. Rollie emphasizes the value and impact of intimacy training as a foundational value to building inclusive artistic spaces and as a natural connection to directing curricula. In the book review, Shadow Zimmerman reviews The Directors Lab: Techniques, Methods, and Conversations About All Things Theatre, curated and edited by Evan Tsitsias. Considering the Directors Labs in New York, Chicago, and Toronto, the book mirrors the components of the lab gatherings and offers a glimpse into the professional development opportunities fostered by the labs for directors in many stages of their careers. We hope both pieces will build advance interest in SDC readers for an upcoming issue of the Journal that focuses on the academy, examining the rich interplay between higher education and the profession. EDITED + INTRODUCED BY
ANN M. SHANAHAN + EMILY A. ROLLIE
SDCJ-PRS SPECIAL EDITORIAL ESSAY
CONSENT IN/AS COLLABORATION: TEACHING CONSENT AND INTIMACY PRACTICES IN THE DIRECTING CLASSROOM BY EMILY A. ROLLIE, CENTRAL WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Last winter, in a Directing II class, the students and I utilized case studies—an active learning approach to discussing best practices and strategies for working with actors and other collaborators. Once each week to start class, a student drew a scenario from an envelope, read it to the class, and offered their initial assessment and response, followed by a group discussion. Based on real life examples that are often complicated with no singular answer, the case studies were a class favorite and often resulted in lively discussion (such that it usually required use of a timer to ensure we had time for other class work). One day, a student drew the following: You’re directing a play that features two characters who are teenagers and, in the play’s action, are supposed to have an ‘immediate physical attraction’ to each other. They also share what your producer keeps calling a ‘steamy’ scene together. One actor comes to you and tells you that they are having a hard time acting opposite the other actor because they are not ‘giving as much’ emotionally as the actor thinks their scene partner could, making it hard for them to create the passion needed for the scene. You, too, have noticed that the actor seems to be holding back or hesitating. What do you do?
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SDC JOURNAL PEER-REVIEWED SECTION | WINTER 2024
After reading the scenario aloud, the student quickly and matter-offactly stated, “Well, that’s why there’s intimacy choreography, right?” Their comment was immediately echoed by their classmates, who nodded in agreement. “Yep, set the intimacy and then it doesn’t have to be an emotions thing.” “Totally. Intimacy choreography. Then it can work within both actors’ boundaries.” “For sure. And then as directors, we can remind them that they have the self-care cue if they need it anytime, too.” That moment characterizes many conversations in my classroom, particularly the directing classroom where I aim to model the creation of a space in which to grapple with the “uncomfortable” and engage in collaborative conversation and creation methods that are inclusive of collaborators and their diverse backgrounds, identities, and abilities.1 In the words of Anne Bogart, as a director and teacher of directing, “my job is to cultivate the kind of spaciousness where permission is possible. I try to create the room in which everyone is both participating and responsible” (26). As such, over the last five years, I have revised my directing curriculum to embed elements of intimacy training and consent-based directorial practices within conversations about collaboration and the director’s work. I believe directors are particularly well-poised to
