3-MONTH DISTANCE LEARNING PROGRAMME
The Director and the Play
A Play Analysis Course for Directors
For anyone preparing to direct a play. Over twelve weeks of distance learning you work through your own play one section at a time, from the first reading to the plan for your first rehearsal. Your tutor reads every section and replies with individual written feedback.
The presentation describes the programme week by week. We send it to you personally, with the next start dates.
DURATION
12 weeks, 120 hours of study
FORMAT
Distance learning, in English
FEEDBACK
Individual and written, every week
TUITION
€2,450
From first reading to first rehearsal
A first reading tells you what a play does to you. Before a first rehearsal you need to know exactly what happens in each scene, who wants what from whom, what your room can give and which evenings go to which scenes.
Each week you apply one working procedure to your play and write the result as a section of your Production Book, the working document you take into rehearsals. From Week 4, every section includes a decision about your production, such as how many evenings a scene gets or which part you cast first. By Week 12 the book covers the whole play, and you can open it in front of your cast when someone asks why their character comes in at that moment.
Who the programme is for
The programme is written for people who are going to stage a play, or are seriously preparing to, and want to walk into the first rehearsal with the whole play worked out.
01
Directing with real limits
You may be staging a school play, or working with a community or independent company that has a hall booked for a set number of evenings. From Week 1 the programme treats the people, the room and the evenings you have as part of the directing.
02
Coming to directing from another role
Actors, choreographers and assistant directors often know a play from inside one part or one department. Here you read the whole play for what everyone in it is doing and turn that reading into decisions you can explain to a company.
03
Looking for a method you can repeat
If your preparation has relied on instinct and on whatever time was available, the programme gives you a sequence of steps you can run again on your next play.
Applicants need prior experience in the performing arts. Each week you write one section of your Production Book: a few hundred words in Weeks 1 to 3, where most of the work goes into tables, and 1,000 to 1,800 words from Week 4. The programme suits people who enjoy reading a play closely and explaining their decisions in writing.
Your own play, from Week 1 to Week 12
You choose your play in Week 1 and stay with it for all twelve weeks. Before reading the dialogue, you test it against your conditions. You set the roles against the people you will have, the running time against your rehearsal hours and every location against your one room, and you check the performance rights for the play and its translation. Then you read it once, in one sitting, and write down what it did to you.
For Weeks 1 to 8 you work at a table with the play and the basic numbers of your production: how many people, what space, how many evenings. From Week 9 the work draws on the detail. You measure your performance space, find out what the building has and allows, and collect your company's dates. If the company is still forming, you plan for the people you can realistically expect and mark those pages as provisional.
What you work on
The twelve weeks move in four stages, and each section builds on the ones before it.
01
WEEKS 1 TO 3
The play and what it stands on
Your first reading, the units and events of the play, and the given circumstances that shape what each character does.
02
WEEKS 4 TO 6
Action and conflict
The principal events and the turn of the play, its central conflict, and one character traced through every unit they appear in, with objectives, obstacles and tactics an actor can play.
03
WEEKS 7 AND 8
What you are staging it for
The super-objective of the play and the super-objective of your production, your central directorial question, and one scene broken into beats to read the tempo-rhythm of the scene.
04
WEEKS 9 TO 12
The room, the resources and the rehearsals
A ground plan of your real space and a specific job for light, sound, objects and costume. Then casting, a rehearsal calendar of single evenings and the plan for your first rehearsal.
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.
1
Read the week's written lecture. It introduces one procedure and shows it on the worked example.
2
Apply the procedure to your own play.
3
Submit your section of the Production Book.
4
Your tutor reads it and writes back about your play and your decisions.
5
Take the feedback into the next week's section.
NIPAI calls this Learning by Doing. Each procedure goes to work on your play in the week you learn it.
ONE WEEK IN PRACTICE
Week 8
In Week 8 your tutor chooses one scene from your play. You mark each point where the character driving the scene changes tactic, quote the line that causes the change and count the length of each beat in lines. From those lengths you read the tempo-rhythm of the scene, and you write the sentence you will say to the actor on the first day about where the scene changes gear.
Written feedback from your tutor
Your tutor reads each section against the criteria for that week and writes to you about your play. The feedback names what already works in your decisions and then turns to what needs more work. It refers back to what you wrote in earlier weeks. In Weeks 2 to 4, each new section opens with the revisions your tutor asked for, up to an hour's work. Your tutor also chooses some of your material, such as the scene you break into beats in Week 8. In the weekly assignment sheets your tutor is called your mentor.
The feedback stays with you in writing, to reread beside the play and take into rehearsal.
"Working on Medea and receiving detailed feedback throughout the course helped me grow both creatively and professionally."
Rahel Miteku
Contortionist and choreographer, Ethiopia
PARTICIPANT REVIEW
"I thought it was very fascinating to do such a deep dive into the script that I was working on, and it was also very challenging to be very specific with everything that I was doing…"
Jaelyn Silvey
Theatre director, Montana, USA
What you finish with
The programme takes you up to your first rehearsal.
01
A Production Book for your play
Its twelve sections sit in one document, revised in Week 12, and it opens with the super-objective of your production and your central directorial question. Before you finish, you give three sections to someone new to the play and ask what they would do with the people named in them. Their questions become sentences in the book.
02
Your first rehearsal, planned
The first twenty minutes planned minute by minute, with the opening in the words you will use.
03
Twelve weeks of written feedback
On your own decisions, from Week 1 to Week 12.
04
NIPAI Certificate of Completion
Issued when you complete the programme.
Other NIPAI programmes
Depending on where you are in your work, one of these may fit better.
3 MONTHS
Choreography and Blocking in Performance
The stage picture, positions and groupings.
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 sections
Study time
120 hours
Format
Distance learning with written lectures, weekly assignments and individual written feedback from your tutor
Language
English
Tuition
€2,450
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 later apply to the 18-month Advanced Theatre Directing Diploma, your completed programme can be reviewed as part of your pathway, and tuition alignment can be discussed during admissions.
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 are preparing and the conditions you are working in, 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 people preparing to stage a play, including a first production after years as an actor, a school production or a community show.
Do I need actors or a company?
For most of the programme you work at a table with your play and the basic numbers of your production: how many people, what space, how many evenings. From Week 9 you add the detail, such as the measurements of your space and your company's dates. If your company is still forming, you plan for the people you can realistically expect.
Can I work on a play I am already preparing?
Yes. Choose a text you can keep in one edition or translation for twelve weeks and for which you can obtain performance rights. The lectures use A Doll's House as their worked example, so choose another play for your own work.
Are there live classes?
The programme is taught in writing. You read each lecture and write each section at times that fit around your work and rehearsals, and your tutor's feedback comes in writing too.
How much time should I plan?
The programme is planned at 120 hours over twelve weeks, about ten hours a week on average. Some weeks include practical steps away from the desk, such as measuring your space or collecting your company's dates.
Will I develop a directorial concept?
You keep the decisions a concept usually holds as three separate statements: the super-objective of your production, your central directorial question and the core action of the play. In Week 7 you find the core action in the text, check that your question can be answered in more than one way, and test the super-objective of your production against the chain of events, the central conflict, the character you traced and your conditions.