The director’s work in bringing a play from page to stage starts long before the first rehearsals. In the case of
The Crucible,
a play that is very important to director Jonathan Church because of its universal relevance, his early work on the text was solitary; he read and re-read the play before meeting with his designer, Simon Higlett.
The two had worked together previously, and both had either directed (Jonathan) or designed (Simon) previous productions of Miller’s play. Their meeting focused and shaped their thoughts and by the end of one day, they already had designs for the sets.
Once the design is finalised, the director then usually turns to casting.
The audition process is the first step in unlocking the potential life of a play and if a director makes a mistake and miscasts an actor, it is difficult if not impossible to recover it in rehearsals. In this production,
Jonathan had the help of a casting director, whose wide knowledge of different actors helped him find the right actors for what he was trying to achieve, and the qualities he was trying to bring out in different parts.
A director basically has two complex but complementary tasks: staging and directing. Some of the scenes in
The Crucible involve up to fourteen actors, and Jonathan had to help them map their movements, while ensuring that the focus of the audience would be where the text demanded. Directing actors is usually a more subtle process in which the director tries to help actors explore the text, make acting choices, and encourages them to think about the relationship between their character and others, as
Jonathan Church explains when talking about John and Elizabeth Proctor. The work done during rehearsals also allowed this production
to develop its own style, the original set design evolved, and clearer ideas of how to bring to life
key moments in the play emerged.
