Day Ten at the LCT Directors Lab - Evening

There have been afternoon rehearsals for the other directors working on Macbeth this week, as well as a directors-initiated exploration into exploring the witches from the point of view of different religions which culminated today.

In the evening, we had a two-part discussion regarding the director-lighting designer relationship. We were visited by the Tony-winning MacDevitt/Posner/Katz team who lit Coast of Utopia at LCT, along with a bevy of young LDs with whom we had an extended conversation.

I was one of the directors present with a great deal of experience working with lighting designers, so it was interesting to hear people with different kinds of experience talk about the process.

The prevalent view of all the designers (both famous and young) was that lighting designers should be part of the whole design conversation, from the beginning, and should be related to as storytellers rather than as technicians. This may seem obvious, but it is easy to forget or lose sight of when schedules and geography make conversation less than convenient--and because the most obvious part of a lighting designer's work happens closer to a show's opening.

In addition, all the designers present were from the "tech without tech" school of thought, with which I agree. I think that tech rehearsals should really be called "design rehearsals". In this view, directors are working artistically with everyone in the room and everyone is doing artistic work, including the costume and set designers who are evaluating if their designs are working. LDs are not expected to fill in "cues", nor make actors wait. It's a working rehearsal in which LDs sketch most of the design as rehearsal happens, perhaps stopping to concentrate on key moments (during which time a director can work with actors and others), and then refine through continuing conversation during and around run-throughs and previews. No one seemed to like "dry tech" ("I just erase everything afterward anyway"), though a few thought "paper tech" meetings can be helpful. None of them seemed to like writing cues in advance without actors on stage. In short, a dynamic process involving ideas, metaphors and interaction is what people crave, and what usually produces the richest results.

This was all good to hear articulated. In some circumstances I've had designers of all sorts who have overbooked themselves (or been just plain lazy) and depart after the first dress rehearsal, which, for me, represents a huge lost opportunity. Designers should be on hand until the director declares the show is "frozen" from a design point of view.

At O'Neal's afterwards, I had an interesting conversation with another Lab member about what a "strong" director means, since most of the designers had expressed earlier that they liked "strong" directors. We agreed that this meant both strength of character and strength in directing and personal expression, but not necessarily a director with a unilaterally pre-determined concept.