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Unlocking the body, finding the heart : directing Anton Chekhov's The Seagull

University of British Columbia

Unlocking the Body, Finding the Heart: Directing Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull explores my directorial practice while staging Chekhov’s The Seagull at the Telus Studio Theatre, University of British Columbia from January 23 to February 8, 2014. As presented in the following pages, my primary objective was to find and deliver an immediate and unique interpretation of this exceptional play’s dramatization of romantic and artistic conflict in late 19th Century Russia. My practice centred upon an analysis and rehearsal process that investigated character through movement and an understanding of the connectedness between the body and emotional states. I also examine how I worked within the Telus Theatre thrust stage configuration, finding ways to not only overcome this challenge, but to use it to my advantage. Finally, I look at how The Seagull served as a crucible for me to expand and begin defining my practice and abilities as a director. In doing so, I also discovered a deep passion for teaching—a journey that should be evident in both my journal and directorial process pages. This paper includes a directorial analysis of the script, the journal chronicling the entire production process, production photos and a chapter containing my reflections on the year I spent working on The Seagull.

Text

2014-09-03

Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/50300

Theatre

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.5/ca/