STAGE DIRECTORS AND CHOREOGRAPHERS (SDC) SCHOLARSHIP COMPETITION:
The Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers / Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (SDC / KCACTF) Scholarship Competition is an exciting opportunity for advanced students of directing to further their skills. Participants will interact with professional directors and educators from within and without Region I, as well as their peers from other institutions within the region.
The KCACTF Region I SDC experience includes workshops and roundtables designed specifically for participants in the competition. Possible workshops include: the actor / director relationship; collaborating with designers; staging / use of space; new play development; and others still being developed. We are also hoping for roundtables with directors and production teams of invited productions so participants can discuss work they've seen as a group.
All participating students will receive constructive critique of their work intended to enhance their education from a carefully chosen panel of professionals. Students advancing beyond the preliminary round of the competition will be expected to actively integrate feedback, under the mentorship of members of the Directing Initiative Regional Task Force, and then present their scene a second time for additional feedback.
WHO IS ELIGIBLE:
To participate in the SDC Competition, a student must:
- Attend a school which has entered at least one production in the regional festival at either the associate or participating level in 2010;
- Be nominated by a faculty member at their school;
- Submit a completed application by December 1st.
HOW TO APPLY:
The following documents must be submitted electronically by December 1st to Adam Zahler at
azahler@worcester.edu
- A Cover sheet which provides:
- Your name, address, and current email address
- Your cell phone number
- The name and location of your school
- The names and email addresses for your faculty references
- Faculty letter of nomination and recommendation which speaks to the student’s:
- Organizational abilities;
- Imagination and artistic vision;
- Communication skills;
- Ability to collaborate with others.
- A resume that focuses on your experience and training as a director.
- Statement of interest by the student, addressing the reasons for his / her interest in the competition 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.
- If a student has directed a fully mounted production (full length or one-act), please include a director’s statement of concept or approach, and, if possible, some visuals from the production. Visuals may include images from visual research and / or sketches from designs or photos from the final production and must be accompanied by a brief explanation that connects the visuals to the directorial concept or approach.
All of these requirements should be on separate jpgs in one electronic application.
Applications will be reviewed by a panel comprised of the SDC Directing Coordinator and other members of the Region 1 Directing Committee. This panel will select students to participate in the preliminary round of the competition. A range of ten to twelve students will be invited. Students who are invited to the regional festival will prepare a scene at their home school, using bona fide students from their school. These scenes will then be presented at the regional festival. Scenes are to be selected from a list that will be posted in the fall on the national website www.kcactf.org.
Student directors will create a prompt book and rehearsal journal of their process. After the preliminary round, the regional judges will determine who will continue to the final round of interviews and scene presentations.
Director’s Prompt Book
Questions for Written Analysis
Identification:
1. List title of play, name of author, and date of writing, first
production, or both.
Plot:
2. Briefly describe any significant previous action that occurs before the scene begins.
3. Describe the major event(s) of the scene.
4. Describe the scene’s basic conflict in a concrete sense (example: Edna wants Joe to join the striking cab drivers but Joe is afraid).
5. 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:
6. List the characters, and provide an overall character objective and an objective for the scene.
7. Identify the obstacles between each the characters and each of their objectives in the scene.
8. How do the characters change over the course of the scene?
Vision / Concept
9. 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
10. 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.
