Directing on the fly!

As a college performer/director I have been able to watch my troupe grow over the years. When I start off a comedy season I like to have a general flow of what I would like to accomplish directing wise over the course of a semester. I think the best thing to do as a director is to have an ultimate goal for the end of the semester, and then construct a plan to achieve (that naturally leads to) that goal.

For example my goal for the Fall 2010 season was to perform a rich "Organic" Harold by December. Here was my general approach:

• Aug. Work on rich character development and perform the Henry

• Sept. Work on strong relationships within a scene
  

• Oct. Work on recognizing and continuing themes throughout a set of scenes and introduce the Harold

• Nov. Introduce and work an organic group game format and ultimately perform an "Organic" Harold

"Friends for Life"

This is kind of a Harold-variant that we came up with for a 10-15 minute slot, but can obviously be adjusted for length.

The premise is that we follow a long-term friendship (given by the audience, or to avoid playing 'brother sister' every time, take what the audience suggests and do a little pattern web until you stumble upon a new relationship like carnies, etc.) in 6 scenes, the form of these scenes is: