In trying to find a way to determine the three most important duties of a theatre director, I asked myself, “if the production were a collaborative effort in which only experienced actors and designers were involved in a production—and those actors and designers found themselves in a situation in which they did not have the benefit of a director—which of the director’s duties could be performed equally well by those experienced actors and designers? Which duties, on the other hand, could not be performed as well (or at all) without the benefit of a director?” (Let us say that the director was temporarily indisposed, either in a mental hospital or a Buddhist monastery). Any of the duties that could be performed by experienced actors or designers would not make the list of director’s top three duties.

I put conceptualization aside temporarily, because I “felt” that it would be the most difficult to achieve without a director. We’ll find out later whether or not my hunch was correct (and maybe we’ll find out what happened to the director!).

So let’s begin with design meetings. Imagine a group of experienced, creative designers who have been tasked with the creation a unified vision for a play in a collaborative manner without the benefit of a director (who was currently busy either with group therapy or learning a Zen kōan). Could they achieve that unified vision as a team? Absolutely. They wouldn’t have the benefit of a single person’s vision, but group visions can be every bit as creative as a single one, as long as the group was cohesive. Theatre designers do not become experienced designers without having learned how to collaborate with others (directors as well as other designers) toward a unified vision. Would this be an ideal situation? Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on different variables, including the complexity of the design and the amount of rapport and cohesion able to be established by the group. Could this scenario succeed? Yes, easily. Strike design meetings from the list of the top three duties of a director.

What about casting? Could a play be cast without the director (who was busy either casting shadow puppets on the hospital walls or casting nothingness into the voids of the universe)? No. Plays cannot cast themselves. Even if it were cast by, say, the producer, he or she would have to put on his/her directing hat while doing so. Here’s the first of the top three duties of the director: casting.

Let’s move on to scheduling. In our fictional director-less play, the collaborative team of designers is busy debating a unified vision for the set. The producer (or maybe one of the actors) has decided upon an enviable, professional cast of characters while temporarily acting as director. (The director, meanwhile, is busy either getting a schedule for his meds or scheduling an itinerary in which time and space have no meaning.) These actors are consummate professionals who do not need to be led by their noses. They, like the designers, did not become experienced professionals by being unprepared or by arriving late to their previous rehearsals and performances. A troupe of professional actors could come to some sort of agreement on scheduling of rehearsals. They would have every bit as much knowledge about how much rehearsal time they would need to put on a successful performance for their given roles. Let’s strike scheduling from the list.

Blocking would be a difficult duty for a non-director to accomplish. How would an actor know the proper sight lines and understand which positions offer the most dramatic effect without the ability to step outside of his/her self? One way to get around this dilemma would be for an actor who was not in a certain scene to do the blocking for that particular scene. Of course, if every actor was in every scene, we’d be right back where we started. A director seems essential for this duty (even if he has to perform it in either a hospital robe or a saffron robe). Unless some more-essential duty comes along, blocking makes the list, for now.

The duty of actor-coaching seems like an obvious choice for a director’s top three duties. Let’s move back, however, to our description of actors as it pertains to scheduling. Again, these actors are consummate professionals who do not need to be led by their noses. Could a professional actor coach him/her self? Without a doubt, he/she could. Of course, he/she couldn’t do so in light of a director’s concept, because there is no director’s concept right now (at least not a concept that could be understood either by a coherent person or a person who doesn’t understand the first of the four noble truths). Could a meeting (or perhaps several meetings) of actors, much like the designers’ meetings, collaboratively decide upon a concept? Yes, it could. Could the actors coach themselves and each other in this light? Yes, they could. Strike actor-coaching from the list. We’re running out of choices.

Finally, we take a look at pacing. Like actor-coaching, at first glance it seems critical that a director perform this duty. Can an actor caught up within the excitement and emotion of a scene be aware of the pacing at the same time? To answer this question, I turn to the sport of track & field. A professional, world-class runner has trained his/her body to perfection. This includes the ability to know exactly his/her pace at any given moment during a race. He/she has practiced this pacing countless times before ever stepping foot on a track for a race. That includes pacing for all previous races and training runs in that runner’s entire career. The world-class runner did not become that fast by not knowing how to pace him/her self in any given situation that may arise. At the beginning of the runner’s career, a coach may have needed to help that runner with pacing. But an experienced professional should not need a coach later on in his/her career to help with pacing. Different races have different pacing requirements and the runner eventually learns all of them, even making them second nature. Sometimes a race will be a tactical one in which all of the runners in a race save all of their strength for that one last sprint at the end. Sometimes the tactics of a race call for a more-even pacing strategy throughout the race. Sometimes the runner might decide that pushing at the beginning and “breaking” the other runners early-on might best ensure a victory. No matter what tactic is called for in a race, a runner will have already visualized every one of them in his/her mind many times already.

Much like pacing for a runner, an actor with vast experience and training has put him/her self into countless scenarios in which he/she had to think about what sort of pacing best works for a given situation. Perhaps he/she needed a director’s coaching earlier in his/her career for assistance with pace, character shaping, etc., but the professional actor is probably able to handle pacing by him/her self, if called upon to do so in any given situation, much like a professional runner is able to do. The duty of pacing might best fall to a director (unless, of course, the director either no longer understands the concept of time, either because of his MAOI anti-depressants or his attainment of Satori), but a professional actor would be able to do his/her pacing without a director. Toss pacing from the final list.

Now we can get back to conceptualization. In light of the fictionally-admirable troupe of director-less actors we’ve just discussed, we might be tempted to completely, permanently eliminate the role of director from the stage. Not so fast. One common thread we have noticed during our discussion has been one of adaptability. These actors and designers have been able to successfully adapt to a situation in which they’ve found themselves without a director. But what if they hadn’t had to deal with all of these extra duties? What if a director was there all along and they had been able to focus on their own duties? (What if the director had either had gotten his meds adjusted sufficiently so that he could return to the set or he had finally realized that somethingness trumps nothingness any old time?) The play would have benefited from every one of his directorial duties. The design meetings would have been smoother and quicker if the designers had that original director’s vision, the scheduling wouldn’t have been as much of a hassle and the actors would have appreciated the director’s guidance in the coaching of their roles. All of that, along with the other two essential roles that a director plays (casting and blocking) would have been much more greatly enhanced by a director’s concept. A director’s conceptualization makes all the difference between a good and a great play and every one of his other duties depends on that concept.

In summary, while a director’s leadership in design meetings, scheduling, actor-coaching and pacing would greatly benefit a play (especially now that either his psychiatric team has given him an off-grounds day pass, or he has reached Nirvana, that perfect peace of the mind that is free from craving, anger and other afflictive states), none of those duties are as important as conceptualization, casting and blocking, which are the three most important duties of a director. Without a director’s leadership in conceptualization, casting and blocking, a play might not ever become a play at all, much less come close to achieving that magic that differentiates a great play from the rest.