As I conclude my senior year at Holy Cross, I still shake my head at the crazy decision I made halfway through my college career: to become a director. The choice has always oscillated between a wacky fantasy and the best way I know to fulfill a sense of belonging. Previously, I only marveled at the emotions on an actor\u2019s face or colorful costumes; now I see all production elements filtered through a director\u2019s vision and heart. Reflecting on my path makes me consider all the lessons I have gained through the process and I want to thank the people I worked with along the way.<\/p>\n
Ed Isser, my directing professor, likes to ask me why it took me so long to join his class. But the answer has always been obvious to me: at the time, I wasn\u2019t ready. I first contemplated taking directing during my sophomore spring as Ed was recruiting students from Theatre History 1 to join the fall class. Some of my sophomore friends had gone through the last round, and the process was apparently brutal, with long hours and an amount of work I was terrified to handle. While I loved acting in one of those projects, the stress I saw my director struggle through deterred me. A fellow theatre major, Wesley Smith, said it best: \u201cIf you aren\u2019t sure you want to do it, don\u2019t do it.\u201d So, as Ed encouraged me in office hours to take the class, I stalled. I knew it wasn\u2019t the time for me.<\/p>\n
Fast forward a year later, and I was champing at the bit to dive into all the previously mentioned challenges. Working as a stage manager for the Spring 2024 show The Heiress<\/em>, acting as Richard II in the 300-level Shakespeare class, and creating the immersive Face Factory<\/em> piece with the Performance Art class, including dancing and shadow puppets, were experiences I gained in junior year that I was eager to synthesize into directing. I also finally trusted Ed\u2019s judgement that I would thrive in the class. My first lesson is this: waiting can be a vital step to get you to where you are going. All my success as a director I attribute to this extra year. So, wait!<\/p>\n After joining the class, I realized that directing challenges my creative and practical sides in ways that scratch my brain just right. In our class, the student director takes on all the scenic, costume, lighting, sound, stage management, and production elements needed to create our pieces while also directing the show. My previous experiences acting, working backstage, and stage management are all drawn upon daily; currently, I am ironing out my schedule for my final piece and finding props like red cloth, a mirror, ropes, and a bag to fit my actor\u2019s head. While I imagined directing would focus on my imagination, and it still does, my primary skill set is in the practical tasks.<\/p>\n Rather than generated during rehearsal, creativity occurs during the planning stage, before any casting. The piece\u2019s vision comes from the traditional Stanislavski image: you are locked away in an ordinary room with only your notes and the text to inspire you; everything outside of this generative time is practical work. Another form of creativity comes in the sell. When I pitch my classmates on my piece combining Hippolytus<\/em> by Euripides and Phadra<\/em> by Racine, I have to get specific, convincing peers exactly why my imaginative choices about staging in the Pit\u2019s audience bank and using cloth to represent altars for the goddesses Artemis and Aphrodite are the best way to tell the story. Some pitches, like the altar cloths, are encouraged, while others, like positioning the altars far apart, are confusing and thus rejected. As I learned, directing is the next evolutionary step of all my previous theatre experiences, fusing my practical and creative sides into something new. If any of these ideas embolden you, try a directing class!<\/p>\n Without support, I would not be able to realize my directing talents to their fullest potential. The beauty of the course is that I have a professor who has seen all the issues I am struggling with before and fellow directing students to travel the journey with me. During every Friday class, we students have time to brainstorm common challenges like recruiting actors, scheduling around Enron<\/em> and Alice by Heart<\/em> rehearsals, and entertaining the audience during our pieces\u2019 set changes. Ed also sets up workshops every Friday, accommodating the actors\u2019 schedule, so each director can present excerpts for the entire class and receive feedback on improvements. Because of the helpfulness of the workshops, I have invited directing classmates to come in during rehearsals and provide notes afterwards. The most painful moment was after tech rehearsal for the One Act Festival when Ed encouraged me to cut half of my light cues; it was the best decision for the piece, so I did it. Without a directing class community, I would flounder and make mistakes the hard way.<\/p>\n Expanding outside of the class, directing has fostered deeper relationships with other members of the Theatre Department and Prior Performing Arts Center staff. Betsy Pierce lets me stalk her prop closet whenever I want. Kurt Hultgren and Judi Olson generously helped me with costuming needs like a feather boa, and Anshu Bhatia loaned me some giant mirrors for the perfect look. Joan Townsend is always quick to assist with the programs, and my friend Sarah Park volunteers her time to scheme and operate lights. The network I have developed during my Holy Cross career has strengthened through these conversations. Also, I have had the pleasure of directing the hardest-working and most fun groups of student actors through three different projects. Encouraging actors to grow and shine has been a highlight of my experiences, and I love the energy and dedication they bring to rehearsal, even if I\u2019m asking for something crazy like throwing a punch, scaling a pole, or banging a metal tray. A director can only be as good as the people she surrounds herself with, and I joyfully explore this lesson at every opportunity.<\/p>\n All these lessons would not have been developed without outside influence, but particularly not without Ed Isser. I still remember being dazzled after the first night of rehearsal in 2022 for the Prior\u2019s first department show, Iphigenia<\/em>, when Ed implored us to trust his vision and enjoy the ride. Ed has pushed me as a director, theatre major, and student, and I know I am not the only one. Other college professors share with me plays with lots of dialogue, while I would rather focus on exciting actions and images. Similar to Ed\u2019s Iphigenia, Good Person<\/em>, and Cymbeline<\/em> scripts, the scripts I share with actors rarely have stage directions, so I can teach them instead. Rather than sticking to the original dialogue, I am happy to cut up speeches to better fit the overall vision. As Ed finishes his final semester teaching, I hope my reflections can shed some light on Ed\u2019s powerful influence. He has changed many students\u2019 lives, and he has certainly changed mine.<\/p>\n Thank you, Ed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I conclude my senior year at Holy Cross, I still shake my head at the crazy decision I made halfway through my college career: to become a director. The choice has always oscillated between a wacky fantasy and the best way I know to fulfill a sense of belonging. Previously, I only marveled at… Continue reading Directing, Kate Wheeler ’25<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":615,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"issue":[11],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-volumes","issue-vol-1-spring-2025","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/art-notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/art-notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/art-notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/art-notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/615"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/art-notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/art-notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/art-notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions\/75"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/art-notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/art-notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/art-notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/art-notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Lesson #2: Combine old skills and build new ones!<\/h2>\n
Lesson #3: Make some friends!<\/h2>\n