THE SOCIETY OF STAGE DIRECTORS AND CHOREOGRAPHERS FELLOWSHIP (SDC)
Eligibility:
To be eligible for the SDC Directing Fellowship Program, a student must:
• Attend a school which has entered at least one production in the regional festival at either the associate or participating level;
• Be nominated by a faculty member at their school;
• Have demonstrated excellence in direction;
• Be a bona fide student at the time of the regional festival;
• Submit a completed application packet by December 2, 2011. Deadline extended to December 17!
Application Process:
The following documents must be submitted electronically by December 2, 2011 December 17 to:
Grechen Wingerter at sdc.kcactf2@live.com
1. Faculty letter of nomination and recommendation which speaks to the student’s: The letter should provide information about the student’s record as a student of directing, including coursework and practical directing experience, organizational abilities, imagination and artistic vision, communication skills, and ability to collaborate with others. In addition, the letter should provide the faculty member’s assessment of the nominee as a director and how participation in this program may benefit the student. Be sure to include all faculty contact information.
2. A resume that focuses on your experience and training as a director. Please include all your home contact information – e-mail, address, and all phone numbers – as well as the name and location of your school.
3. Statement of interest by the student, addressing the reasons for his / her interest in the SDC scholarship program and what he / she hopes to achieve and learn through involvement in the process; this must also include a statement of your intent to attend the entire Festival and participate fully in all aspects of the SDC / KCACTF program.
4. The SDC Directing Fellowship Application Form – (click on the left menu online submission form)
Selection:
Applications will be reviewed by a panel comprised of the SDC Directing Fellowship Coordinator and other members of the Region 2 Directing Institute. This panel will select students to participate in the preliminary round of SDC Directing Fellowship program. A range of ten to twelve students will be invited.
Nominated directors will be selected based upon the following criteria: a) a complete application packet at the time of the deadline; b) the student’s ability to articulate why they wish to participate in the SDC scenes, and how they hope the program will benefit their growth as a director; and c) the quality of support for the nominee as described in the letter of nomination provided by the faculty member.
Students will be notified of selection via email no later than December 16.
What to prepare:
Scenes: The list of scenes can be found here : 2012 SDC Scenes
Students selected to participate in the preliminary round must direct one scene from the list of SDC Scenes. These scenes are chosen by a committee at the national level of KCACTF and are from the “green light” list, which means students don’t need to pay for the rights to perform the scene.
The scene must include bona fide student actors, and will be rehearsed at the director’s institution for presentation in a preliminary round at the regional festival. If more than one director participates from the same institution, the directors are discouraged from sharing actors for their projects, and the directors are prohibited from acting in each others’ scenes. Also, if a director is an Irene Ryan Nominee or partner, he or she will not be eligible to participate in the SDC Directing Fellowship Program.
All participants must prepare a written analysis of their scene in the form of a director’s prompt book. The analysis must use the guidelines articulated below under ANALYSIS. Participants may also bring an additional prompt book from a fully mounted production they directed. These prompt books will be discussed in the Interview round.
Scenes should be focused exclusively on acting values and not production values. The Festival will provide basic furniture items or rehearsal cubes — two chairs, one table, and two acting cubes (approx. 24” X 24” X 24”). You may not have other furniture or set items. All essential hand props must be supplied by the directors. Set dressing is not required and strongly discouraged. Costuming should be kept simple. Please note that there is no technical support in the way of lighting and sound. You may provide your own sound with your own equipment – no speakers or amps are provided. Each scene may have an initial “lights up” cue at the top of the scene and a “lights down” cue at the end of the scene if the space is able to accommodate. The festival will provide a stage manager from the regional competition to call these two cues. This stage management student will call all shows. Directors should come prepared with a script for the regional stage manager. There will be a five-minute break between scenes for set-up, with a ten-minute break after every fourth scene.
ANALYSIS:
Analysis will consist of a prepared director’s book for the scene. The director’s book will be handed to the SDC Directing Fellowship Coordinator for the region prior to the preliminary round and will be returned to the student director at the final round. Please include the following in your analysis of the scene:
Director’s statement: The director’s written statement provides the personal, analytical and intuitive framework for the scene. It is a combination of script analysis, research, creativity and personal connection to the text. The statement should address the themes, images and specific lines of text that guide the director’s work, including the context of the scene; where/how the scene fits into the play.
Identification:
* List title of play, name of author, and date of writing, first production, or both.
* A metaphor which expresses the essence of the play.
* A simple, one sentence telling of the story of the play.
Given Circumstances:
* Geographical location, including climate
* Date: year, season, time of day;
* Economic environment; Political environment; Social environment; Religious environment
Plot:
* Provide a copy of your script divided into units of action and beats. Give a nominative phrase as a title for each beat.
* Detailed breakdown of the action. Separate the action into beats and provide an active present-tense verb for each character within each beat. (Example: A entraps and B pleads.)
* Indicate the key events for the scene (key discoveries and turning points, etc.)
Dramatic Action:
* Provide a concise analysis of the scene’s basic conflict.
* Briefly describe any significant previous action that occurs before the scene begins.
* Describe the major event(s) of the scene.
* Describe the scene’s basic conflict in a concrete sense (example: Edna wants Joe to join the striking cab drivers but Joe is afraid).
* Describe how this scene’s basic conflict integrates with the basic conflict of the play in an abstract sense (example: Edna and Joe’s conflict reflects the basic conflict of Waiting for Lefty which is an exploration of the struggle of the working class against capitalist greed… etc., etc.).
Character:
* List the characters, and provide an overall character objective and an objective for the scene.
* Identify the obstacles between each the characters and each of their objectives in the scene.
* How do the characters change over the course of the scene?
Language: Discuss how choice of words, images, phrases, sentence structures and the sound of the dialogue help to reveal character and provide meaning within the scene.
Vision / Concept: What is the importance of the scene to the play as a whole? How does this scene reveal, highlight, detail, or expand upon one or more of the ideas that the playwright hopes to communicate to her / his audience? (Please understand that the last part of this question asks you to identify at least one of the playwright’s ideas or purposes in writing the play.)
Spectacle/Design: List a series of imagistic words that capture your aesthetic sense of the scene’s look and “feel” of the play. These words could include colors, textures, ornamentation, relevant metaphoric images, light and shadow, composition, degree of detail, etc.
Additional materials: provide any additional research material, images, etc that helped you find the core of the scene.
What to expect at the Regional Festival
The Total Experience:
• Daily workshops in directing with regional faculty and professionals
• Mentorship with members of the Directing Initiative Regional Task Force
• Discussion panels with other student directors
• Presentation of your prepared scene followed by constructive feedback from a panel of respondents within the context of the SDC / KCACTF Directing Fellowship Program.
Stages of the Program
Preliminary Round: A closed round. All of the candidates (directors only) are required to attend all of the first round presentations. Teachers and mentors who are the nominators-of-record for the student directors are encouraged, but not required, to attend. Other than for the scene in which they are performing, actors are not allowed in the room. After the presentation, the respondent(s) will react to the work in front of the closed gathering of directors, teachers and mentors.
Interview Round: Directors will attend closed individual interviews with the respondent(s), in which the director’s statement and approach can be discussed. No teachers, mentors or actors are allowed to participate in this phase of the event. If you have one, you may bring a prompt book from a fully mounted production you have directed to this interview. This book should include notes, research and visuals from the process and production, and may provide the regional panel with another example of the director’s work and another point of discussion.
At this point, the regional panel will select between six and eight participants to advance to the final round.
Final Round: Open to the public. A small number of final round presentations is encouraged (six or less). The final round occurs a day or two following the preliminary round, to allow the director and actors to work on the scene based on the feedback from the preliminary round. Directors will be mentored in this work by the Directing Initiative Regional Task Force members, all of whom are professional directors and dedicated educators. A response session will follow which must include the scene directors, and may include teachers, mentors, actors and audience.
At this point, the regional panel will choose the recipient and alternate for the SDC Directing Fellowship. The regional recipient will represent Region II at the National Festival in April.
Respondents: The respondents are skilled directors who have a strong track record of responding to directing and are out-of-region colleagues or local professionals who are not affiliated with regional institutions. They will respond to the rounds of presentations, will participate in the “interview round,” and will decide which student director will attend the events in Washington DC. At least one member of the respondent team will be an SDC member. Note: Students chosen to attend events at the national festival in Washington DC are not chosen to work on original scripts.
For official rules, click here.
For Region II information, contact:
Grechen Wingerter
Lycoming College
570-321-4342
sdc.kcactf2@live.com