Theatrical Directing

Roles: director, actor, scene, rehearsal, blocking, performance, audience, script, ensemble

The craft of guiding actors and production elements toward a unified performance. As a source domain, directing foregrounds the tension between control and emergence: the director shapes conditions but cannot dictate the live moment. Structurally productive because it separates preparation (rehearsal) from execution (performance), distinguishes the vision-holder from the performers, and encodes the paradox that the best results come from indirect influence rather than direct command.

As Source Frame (9)

• Casting Is Ninety Percent
• Character Is Conduct
• Give Actions, Not Emotions
• Just Tell the Story
• Rehearsal Is Not Performance → learning-and-development, software-engineering
• Talk to the Character, Not the Actor
• The Duty Is to the Text
• The Ensemble
• The Magic If

Applied To This Frame (2)

• medicine → Director as Obstetrician
• pursuit-and-escape → Every Scene Is a Chase Scene