The essential skills of a great director

The British critic James Agate once unkindly defined a theatre director as ‘a person engaged by the management to conceal the fact that the players cannot act’. That's not how directors see it.
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Image: Kate Cherry in rehearsals for The Seagull by Anton Chekhov (in a new adaptation by Hilary Bell) at State Theatre Centre WA. Photo: Gary Marsh Photography.

The director’s role is a complex one, and their skill-set must be expansive. Directors need the ability to not only read a script but draw out new aspects of the writing; they must possess the knack of being able to observe a production in its entirety, from the smallest detail to the grandest gesture, and ensure that all elements serve the whole; they require communications skills that can balance tact with bluntness when required.

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Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts