Directing class takes to the stage

By Paul Schmitt

Arts & Entertainment Editor

Students in the Theatre & Dance Department’s Directing I class recently brought their skills, which were developed over the course of the semester, to the Page Theatre’s black box theatre on Monday, Dec. 9.

The class, taught this semester by Gale Childs Daly of the Great River Shakespeare Festival, is designed to give students fundamental knowledge of directing techniques and gives them the chance to direct their own scene from a play, which they presented on Monday.

Part of this process involves working through problems on an individual basis, sometimes without much help from others. Sophomore theatre major Gabriel Verges said, “Directing is a very personal and individual art, so I think that the only way for us to really figure out what kind of directors we are individually is simply to work through everything on our own, even when it gets tough.”

Because the class is a major requirement for all theatre majors, not all the students of the class intend to become directors. Karina Kim, another sophomore theatre major, said “Since I am a technician/design focus, it has helped me not only improve basic acting and directing, but to better understand what a director needs to consider when creating a set or lighting a show. Although I don't do acting or directing personally, it is still important for me to know what happens on all levels of a theatrical process.”

On his class experience as a whole, Verges commented that, as a professor, Childs Daly “provided us saplings with the water and sunlight and we've done the rest.”