3-MONTH DISTANCE LEARNING PROGRAMME
Choreography and Blocking in Performance
Stage Composition, Mise-en-scène and Blocking
For anyone who stages scenes of a play. Over twelve weeks of distance learning you work on your own play and turn your reading of it into staging the audience can read and the actors can repeat: groundplans, compositions, group scenes, blocking notation and a final movement score. Your tutor reads every assignment and replies with individual written feedback.
The presentation describes the programme week by week and gives the next start dates. We send it to you personally.
DURATION
12 weeks, about 4-8 hours a week
FORMAT
Distance learning, in English
FEEDBACK
Individual and written, every week
TUITION
€2,450
From reading a play to staging it
A director can know exactly what a scene is about and still be unsure where the people in it should stand. Composition is the way a director makes relationships, pressure, conflict, action and attention visible to the audience, and it can be learned as a sequence of working steps.
Each week you take one staging tool to a scene of your own play and record the result: a groundplan, a set of compositions, a notation key. The method starts from physical action, so every decision is phrased as what a character does to a partner, an object or the space. By Week 12 you have a scene package clear enough for another director to take over the scene.
Who the programme is for
The programme is written for practitioners who stage scenes of dramatic text, or who are moving into that work.
01
Theatre directors
You read a play closely and want the same precision in space: where bodies stand, what the audience sees first, how a group scene carries the action.
02
Teachers who direct productions
You stage school, college or university productions, often with large groups, and want a clear way to compose the stage and record your decisions.
03
Choreographers and movement directors
You work with bodies in motion and are asked to stage scenes with text, furniture and dramatic action. Here you work with the director's logic of mise-en-scène.
04
Assistant directors and stage managers
You want to record blocking so that other people can read it, rehearse it and change it.
Applicants need a high school diploma and prior experience in the performing arts. Each week you submit a PDF or Word document: groundplans, sketches or diagrams with short written explanations.
Your own play, from Week 1 to Week 12
You choose your play in Week 1 and stay with it for all twelve weeks. It needs at least three characters and at least one spatially complex scene: a confrontation, a gathering, a moment of crisis. It can be a published play, a translation, a devised text or material in development. You read it twice, the second time with a pen in hand, marking every spatial reference: stage directions, implied actions, objects, entrances and exits.
You work in sketches, digital diagrams, photographs, paper figures or written descriptions of space. No theatre is required: if you are not working with a real venue, you define a hypothetical audience arrangement. Where you have actors, or can test a movement yourself, the assignment asks you to do so.
ONE DOCUMENT, FIVE VERSIONS
Your groundplan
Week 1: a first spatial hypothesis
Week 2: with objects and furniture placed
Week 3: refined, with sight lines, focal points and zones
Week 11: annotated for your blocking package
Week 12: final, with your movement score
From Week 3 it is the spatial reference for every other assignment.
What you work on
The twelve weeks move in four stages, and each assignment builds on the ones before it.
01
WEEKS 1 TO 3
The play as a spatial field
Stage directions and implied actions, the objects of the play and their journeys, and the groundplan seen from the audience.
02
WEEKS 4 TO 7
Composition tools
Bodies, levels, planes and distance; furniture as barrier, centre of power or trap; group composition and emphasis; gesture and improvisation.
03
WEEK 8
Diagnosis
When a stage picture supports the actors' exchange, when it replaces it, and how to correct it.
04
WEEKS 9 TO 12
One scene, from images to a movement score
Three images of the scene, a sequence of physical actions, a blocking package with your own notation, and a final movement score.
The programme presentation describes every week in detail.
How distance learning works
Each week follows the same cycle, and you choose when to study within it, up to the weekly deadline.
1
Read the week's written lecture. It introduces one staging tool and shows it on examples.
2
Apply the tool to a scene of your own play.
3
Submit your work as a PDF or Word document through the course platform.
4
Your tutor reads it and writes back about your staging decisions.
5
Take the feedback into the next week's assignment.
NIPAI calls this Learning by Doing. Each tool goes to work on your play in the week you learn it.
ONE WEEK IN PRACTICE
Week 5
In Week 5 you take one scene or fragment of your play and stage it three ways with furniture: as a barrier between the characters, as a centre of power, and in a function you choose, such as a route, a trap or an absence. For each version you note what the furniture makes possible, what it prevents and how it changes the actors' behaviour.
Written feedback from your tutor
Your tutor responds to each of your twelve submissions individually and in writing: what already works in your staging, what to test further and what to carry into the next week. If you expect a delay, tell your tutor in advance; where possible, a new date can be agreed.
The feedback stays with you in writing, to reread beside your groundplans and take into rehearsal.
From NIPAI participants
Two participants talk about what they take from the work at NIPAI.
“For me, movement was movement for dance and now it’s like very expressive.”
Choreographer, NIPAI participant
“I’m feeling invigorated and inspired and feeling like I have a lot of tools and strategies and a system.”
Director, NIPAI participant
What you finish with
The programme ends with a scene that another director could rehearse from.
01
A scene package for your play
A final annotated groundplan, a notation key and a movement score of five to eight essential events, with two supporting materials of your choice. You build it so that a director taking over the scene could understand how it moves and why, without your verbal explanation.
02
A body of staging work
Groundplans, composition studies, a correction checklist and a blocking package, all on one play.
03
Twelve weeks of written feedback
On your own staging decisions, from Week 1 to Week 12.
04
NIPAI Certificate of Completion
Issued when you complete all programme requirements.
Other NIPAI programmes
Depending on where you are in your work, one of these may fit better.
3 WEEKS
The Director's Sketchbook
Scene composition, mise-en-scène and storyboarding.
3 MONTHS
The Director and the Play
Play analysis as a working instrument for directing.
12 MONTHS
Theatre Directing Certificate
A longer directing pathway. The blended format includes in-class sessions in Europe.
Programme details
Duration
3 months, 12 weekly assignments
Study time
About 4-8 hours a week; Week 1 and Weeks 11-12 take longer
Format
Distance learning with written lectures, weekly assignments and individual written feedback from your tutor
Language
English
Tuition
€2,450
Paid in full before the programme starts. Funding options depend on the programme, timing and your profile.
Entry requirements
A high school diploma and prior experience in the performing arts
Admission
Send the application form with your CV and links to your work. Each application is reviewed individually; registration, a study contract and enrolment documents follow.
Certificate
NIPAI Certificate of Completion.
Continuing at NIPAI
If you are admitted to the 12-month Theatre Directing Certificate or an 18-month Advanced Diploma in Theatre Directing or Movement Directing, the fee you paid for this programme is deducted from its tuition.
Next step
Programme presentation
Every week of the programme in detail, with the next start dates. We send it to you personally.
A question about your play
Every participant works on their own play with the tutor. Tell us which play you have in mind and the space and people you work with, and we will answer with your situation in mind.
Application
Send the application form with your CV and links to your work. Each application is reviewed individually.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need directing experience?
You need prior experience in the performing arts. The programme is written for practitioners who stage scenes of a play: directors, teachers who direct productions, choreographers and assistant directors.
I have been directing for years. What will I gain?
The programme gives names and procedures to decisions you may already make by instinct, such as group field, primary focus, resisting space and picturization. Week 8 is a diagnostic week in which you test whether your images support the actors' exchange. Week 11 turns your staging into notation that others can work with.
Do I need actors or a theatre?
No. The assignments work with the director's own documents: groundplans, compositions, notation and a movement score. If you are not working with a real venue, you define a hypothetical one. Where you have actors, or can test a movement yourself, the assignments ask you to do so; where you cannot, you note what needs testing in rehearsal.
I am a choreographer. Will the programme teach me to make dance?
The programme teaches mise-en-scène from the director's side: how bodies, objects and groups make the action of a scene visible. The composition of dance material is outside its scope.
Which play can I choose?
Any play you want to direct, with at least three characters and at least one spatially complex scene. When you choose, you send your tutor the title, the edition you use and a link to an English version of the text. For devised material or a project in development, you send a one-page description of the project instead.
How much time should I plan?
About 4-8 hours a week. Week 1, when you choose and read your play, and Weeks 11 and 12, when you build the blocking package and the final score, take longer.