ABSTRACT
A major part of the director’s job during the rehearsal process is to function as the audience’s eyes and ears. It’s the director’s responsibility to make sure that the story is told with simplicity and clarity at all times and that all aesthetic choices conspire to give the audience the best possible experience, The blocking of a scene - the arrangement and movements of the actors in the physical space - is an essential element of theatrical storytelling, and it falls on the director to make a good job of it. Directors usually set an “off-book” deadline, sometime after the first blocking rehearsal, but feel free to annoy the crap out of them to get off book sooner. Directors tend to change the stage picture more often when working on a thrust stage because they don’t want audience members looking at an actor’s back for too long.
