Dreamwork: A Training for Directors

DreamWork: A Training for Directors provides a theoretical basis and a highly detailed, practical, step-by-step blueprint for developing a directorial concept for a play.

Directing is a complex, multi-staged artistic process which, for the most part, is a collaborative work of art. The director works with designers, composers, choreographers and actors to create the performance that is eventually shown to an audience. In this process, there is one stage of the director’s work which is uniquely personal and individual: the creation of a directorial concept. This book concentrates on this crucial stage of the director’s work, offering a template for the creation of a directorial concept prior to embarking on the collaborative stage of the director’s work. The book follows the process from the choice of the text, through a series of clearly documented and structured sets of strategies with attendant examples, up to the creation of the director’s version of the original play - the adaptation - that is the starting point for the director’s dialogue with designers, composers, choreographers and actors.

DreamWork: A Training for Directors is intended for directing students at universities or theatre academies, both at undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as directors at the beginning of their careers.

David Zinder is Professor Emeritus of the Theatre Arts Department at Tel Aviv University, an actor, actor trainer, writer, and an internationally recognized director. He has created a unique form of acting training known as ImageWork Training and is a Master Teacher of the Michael Chekhov Technique. David is a founding member of the Michael Chekhov Association (MICHA) USA, and a member of Michael Chekhov Europe (MCE). The second edition of his book Body Voice Imagination: ImageWork Training and the Chekhov Technique was published by Routledge in 2009.