Editing Theatre director (section)

== The director in theatre history ==
In [[ancient Greece]], the birthplace of European drama, the writer bore principal responsibility for the staging of his plays. Actors were generally semi-professionals, and the director oversaw the mounting of plays from the writing process all the way through to their performance, often acting in them too, as [[Aeschylus]] for example did. The author-director would also train the [[choir|chorus]], sometimes compose the music, and supervise every aspect of production. The fact that the director was called ''didaskalos'', the Greek word for "teacher," indicates that the work of these early directors combined instructing their performers with staging their work.<ref>Brocket, Oscar G.: ''History of the Theatre''. 8th ed. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1999, p. 24</ref>

[[Image:Jean Fouquet - The Martyrdom of St Apollonia - WGA08031.jpg|thumb|[[Jean Fouquet]]:'' The Martyrdom of St. Appollonia'' (1460), depicting the staging of a mystery play, led by a theatre director]]
In [[medieval]] times, the complexity of vernacular religious drama, with its large scale [[mystery plays]] that often included crowd scenes, processions and elaborate effects, gave the role of director (or ''stage manager'' or ''pageant master'') considerable importance. A miniature by [[Jean Fouquet]] from 1460 (pictured) bears one of the earliest depictions of a director at work. Holding a prompt book, the central figure directs, with the aid of a long stick, the proceedings of the staging of a dramatization of the ''Martyrdom of [[Saint Apollonia]]''. According to Fouquet, the director's tasks included overseeing the erecting of a stage and scenery (there were no permanent, purpose-built theatre structures at this time, and performances of vernacular drama mostly took place in the open air), casting and directing the actors (which included fining them for those that infringed rules), and addressing the audience at the beginning of each performance and after each intermission.<ref>Brocket, ''op.cit.'', p. 96</ref>

From [[Renaissance]] times up until the 19th century, the role of director was often carried by the ''[[actor-manager]]''. This would usually be a senior actor in a troupe who took the responsibility for choosing the repertoire of work, staging it and managing the company. This was the case for instance with [[Commedia dell'Arte]] companies and English actor-managers like [[Colley Cibber]] and [[David Garrick]].

[[Image:Stanislavsky.jpg|thumb|left|A portrait of [[Constantin Stanislavski]] by [[Valentin Serov]]]]
The modern theatre director can be said to have originated in the staging of elaborate spectacles of the Meininger Company under George II, Duke of [[Saxe-Meiningen]]. The management of large numbers of extras and complex stagecraft matters necessitated an individual to take on the role of overall coordinator.<ref>Russel Brown, John (ed.): ''The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 334</ref> This gave rise to the role of the director in modern theatre, and [[Germany]] would provide a platform for a generation of emerging visionary theatre directors, such as [[Erwin Piscator]] and [[Max Reinhardt]]. Simultaneously, [[Constantin Stanislavski]], principally an actor-manager, would set up the [[Moscow Art Theatre]] in [[Russia]] and similarly emancipate the role of the director as artistic visionary.

The French ''regisseur'' is also sometimes used to mean a stage director, most commonly in [[ballet]]. A more common term for theatre director in French is ''metteur en scène''.

Post [[World War II]], the [[actor-manager]] slowly started to disappear, and directing become a fully fledged artistic activity within the theatre profession. The director originating artistic vision and concept, and realizing the staging of a production, became the norm rather than the exception. Great forces in the emancipation of theatre directing as a profession were notable 20th-century theatre directors like [[Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko]], [[Vsevolod Meyerhold]],
[[Yevgeny Vakhtangov]], [[Michael Chekhov]], [[Yuri Lyubimov]] (Russia), [[Orson Welles]], [[Peter Brook]], [[Peter Hall (theatre director)|Peter Hall]] (Britain), [[Bertolt Brecht]] (Germany), [[Giorgio Strehler]], and [[Franco Zeffirelli]] (Italy).

A cautionary note was introduced by the famed director Sir [[Tyrone Guthrie]] who said "the only way to learn how to direct a play, is ... to get a group of actors simple enough to allow you to let you direct them, and direct."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bain |first=Reginald F. |date=15 Sep 2000 |title="Not a bad public, that...": Reflections on Teaching |url=https://al.nd.edu/assets/206112/2000_bain_sheedy.pdf |access-date=27 Feb 2024 |website=College of Arts & Letters, University of Notre Dame}}</ref>

A number of seminal works on directing and directors include Toby Cole and Helen Krich's 1972 ''Directors on Directing: A Sourcebook of the Modern Theatre'', Edward Braun's 1982 book ''The Director and the Stage: From Naturalism to Growtowski'', and Will's ''The Director in a Changing Theatre'' (1976).<ref>Eckersley, M. 1998. ''Soundings in the Dramaturgy of the Australian Theatre Director.'' University of Melbourne. Melbourne. p. 17.</ref>