How to Become a Stage Director

Edited by Ben Rubenstein, Dave Crosby, Flickety, KnowItSome and 12 others

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A career as a stage director takes the right degree, talent, experience and temperament. It helps if you are the type who notices everything around you, all the time; if you are both visual and auditory in learning style, if you are musical, and if you can inspire people to want to please you.

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   Be a drama student in secondary school. Find a city with notable theatres to gain knowledge. Charleston SC, Boston MA, San Francisco CA, New York, and Portland are all great cities of the arts with good training programs. Act and stage manage; run the lights and the props. Find out what you're best at, and what you love to do best. Ask your teacher for a realistic assessment of your talents.
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   If you can, go to a university with a recognized theatre program. If you can't afford that, go to a state college with a drama department which puts on lots and lots of plays.
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   In your college summers, get involved with programs. Ask your professors to help find them. It doesn't matter what you do there; just get in and do something - act, stage manager, prop guy, lighting, set building - do whatever you can, and lots of it. Make a great impression on the people who run the program - you will need their recommendations later on. Work like a dog. (You'll have a LOT of fun in these programs.)
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   After college, move to Los Angeles or New York or go back to one of the places you spent your summers. Get a job to pay the rent. Haunt the little workshops and theatres until you get in doing SOMETHING. Sweeping the floor is okay. Try to move up the hierarchy and if you have acting talent, try to get parts. If not, stay in the stage-managing arena and learn to be really great at that.
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   Always be on the lookout for a place at the next-best theatre and try to move up the ladder in size and prestige and quality of production.
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   The next step is to put on a show which you direct, somehow, somewhere. Perhaps the theatre with which you're affiliated will let you direct a little workshop, or perhaps you and your friends can rent a theatre and present your own. Sometimes, directing children's plays can be a good step.
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   At all stages of the game, tell everyone you are "learning to be a director." Not "I want to be a director." Ask everyone in charge of anything to "teach me how to do that." People love that, and it shows the right state of mind. Be humble but not shy or retiring. Show your passion without your ego.
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   From there, it's opportunity hard work luck your ability to maneuver. Break a leg!