I’ll never forget the time my directing teacher pulled out six cans of Campbell’s Tomato Soup, sat them on top of a desk, and told us to make stage pictures.

Clearly, this made an impact – and the soup visual has been weirdly useful in the odd blocking rehearsal – but when I graduated and got into real live rehearsal rooms, I found complex humans where soup cans used to be. While I learned a lot about craft in school, as I started to direct professionally, it became clear how important group leadership and facilitation skills are to a safe and effective artistic process – and also, how little my training had prepared me to take on the interpersonal part of this role. 

In social work, I found a whole field of study focused on understanding the ways in which the group process supports connection, ensemble, mutual aid, and success in achieving group goals. I’ve been able to integrate these principles into my work as a director, leading to some of my richest and most fulfilling artistic experiences, in both the process and the outcome.

As directors and stage managers, we’re constantly juggling – call times, deadlines, design needs, allegiance to the text, all while trying to hear the play’s heartbeat and build ensemble in the room. It’s a lot – and, often, we’re facing pretty high stakes as we try to get all of that right. This workshop aims to strengthen, through group work knowledge and a greater understanding of self, the interpersonal foundation of the artistic process.