Syllabus/Dover Kosashvily

 Directing Actors

The purpose of the course is to rejoice or cry with hero. The actor is a major component in a director's toolbox. Utilizing the actor the director maintains the human aspect in his work. A good director does not rely on the improvisational skills and talent or instinct of the actor, but rather, he should be the one influencing the actor's expression. A director should not expect or rely on the interpretation of the actor; he should guide the actor working to achieve the result he is seeking from the actor's performance while ensuring it is genuine and emotional.

Actors will bend over backwards and sell their own soul to please the director. What will please the director?  When does the director know the scene and the actor are ready to shoot? This course teaches, under the assertion, that the guidance and interpretation of a good actor is based and dependent on the director's knowledge and ability to interpret basic drama functions and the ability to interpret successfully the script at hand.The aim of the course is to give students the opportunity to stage emotional provoking scenes.

The purpose of the course is to clarify the fact that a good a scene, is a scene able to reach out and touch the audience in various emotional levels while projecting genuine and believable feelings. To reach the appropriate level of emotional connection a scene depends primarily on the knowledge of the fundamentals of drama only then one can rely on the skills of the actor. The workshop will teach the fundamentals of drama and how to communicate them to the actor so they can be implemented by him. We will learn to analyze and create characters and learn how a director can guide the actor to play a character that is popular and loved by viewers.

This purpose of the directing Workshop is to teach students how to direct actors. It is not an acting workshop. We will learn the path to successfully guiding actors to reach and project the directors' interpretation and desired emotional expression. During the lessons, we will guide the actors to be sufficiently confident in the accuracy of their delivery while assuring the scene will be dramatic and exciting. The believability in the performance is the only assurance we have the audience will experience firsthand the desired emotional connection. Bit by bit we will guide the actor to walk safely towards the main goal of the emotional journey with the audience until the surprising moment he reaches the emotional climax ensuring a successful transference of feelings.

During the semester, each student will have the opportunity to choose a scene and bring it to fruition with actors he casts and directs.