The Director and the Author: Unit D

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
• Convenor: Professor Rob Swain
• Assessment: practical exercises (30%), a 20-minute presentation (40%) and 2000 words of supporting material (30%)

In this unit you will learn about the relationships between the director, the author and the text. This is principally directed at helping a director to prepare a play for production and will include issues such as the relationship with the living author, negotiating an author’s designs (whether living or dead), the relations between past and present practices, and adapting texts for performance.

By the end of this unit, you will have:

• investigated the functions and responsibilities of the professional theatre director in relation to the author and the text
• coordinated and synthesised the results of this investigation and made a presentation to the group and assessors
• prepared written material related to the presentation that supports and sustains its argument and conclusions.