theWheel

theOwl

In the course of reading various books on theatrical directing, I found my way to Harold Clurman’s On Directing.  Now, I am interested in the theater, but I always find myself, perhaps inevitably, considering any thoughts I have concerning the theater as potentially applicable to my various musical endeavors.  So it is with Clurman’s book.  At the beginning of Chapter 7 – The Director’s Work Script – the author has this to say:

Having read the script six or more times and decided what the play’s main action or spine is, the director would then do well to study the play in still another way.  He should read all the parts separately as if he himself were going to act each of them. This will help him find the spines of the chief motivating action for each character. The character’s spine must be conceived as emerging from the play’s main action.  Where such a relation is not evident or non-existent, the character performs no function in the play.  There is no basis for a true characterization unless the character’s prime motivation or spine is found.

Hmmm…this seems to be a particularly fertile metaphor for choices one makes in arranging and orchestrating music.

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