006. booted team-PMs

Cymbeline

In theatre I learned best when I was:

- assisting or studying with a master director, while also
- directing my own play, while also
- teaching an acting class.

"Theatre is a received art," said Bart Sher during a Servant Of Two Masters rehearsal one afternoon. "Theatre is a received art," I told the students that night whom I was directing in Electra, and promptly taught them commedia techniques.

There is one chair in a rehearsal room for the Assistant Director. It is reserved for a young director to absorb the ecosystem of rehearsal. I love this chair. I sat in it for years, watching Mark, Leonid, Burke, Andrew, Lee, Bart, Vanessa, Nicolette, Robyn, Joseph, Jennifer, Eugenio.

The first day of rehearsal I would shiver, imagining that god had created the entire universe to give me this moment. The whole earth, all humans who have ever lived, theatre, Shakespeare, my parents; educating every person involved, creating this building & theatre, paying everyone, and bringing them all to this room this Tuesday, to incinerate in the truth of this text -- just to teach me.

Rachel. Meet Cymbeline, whispers god.
You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloods
No more obey the heavens than our courtiers
Still seem as does the king.

When I was assistant-directing, I would cover my paper with notes & sketches of what the director was doing. In the margins, I would write the principles I was abstracting.

PRINCIPLE: When teaching actors to sing, stand in a circle close enough that the song vibrates your body.
PRINCIPLE: When teaching actors to sing, don't talk. Sing.
PRINCIPLE: 1.5 hours of open voice-work/exploration in rehearsal triggers more breakthrough than 8 hours of straight rehearsal.
PRINCIPLE: Lining up shoes neatly outside the rehearsal room door shapes rehearsal ethics.

I'm doing the same thing now for a team of booted program managers, who are team-PMing their projects. The form changes, but the Work is the same: How to create ultra-high-performance ensembles which incarnate & create the Mystery.

PRINCIPLE: When doing something you don't know how to do, say "I don't know any other way to do this, other than to just start and go through the whole thing."
PRINCIPLE: Boot the team then boot the product.
PRINCIPLE: Have a booted team boot the team.
PRINCIPLE: The more unknown the task, the more iterations of studying it you should plan in the investigation phase.
PRINCIPLE: To understand a system, examine three levels of its meta plus a fourth to verify.
PRINCIPLE: Finish the biggest thing every meeting.
PRINCIPLE: Begin finishing the project before you start it.

Those apply precisely to directing a play.