Inside the Rehearsal Room

Robert Marsden is Head of the Department of Media and Performance at Staffordshire University, where he is also an Associate Professor in Acting and Directing. He is a Fellow in Creative Teaching and Learning and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. When he is not teaching, Robert is a busy freelance theatre director, and has worked in commercial and subsidised sectors across the UK and Europe since 1999. Robert’s research includes British pantomime and rehearsal studies.

• 1. Introduction2. The Rehearsal Process – An Historical Overview and Current Challenges and Opportunities3. Documenting the Process – How have rehearsals been captured by directors, actors and academics.4. Pre-rehearsal: Early Decisions.5. The Rehearsal Room: First Steps.6. The Rehearsal Room: Delving Deeper7. The Rehearsal Room: Final Stages and the Emergence of the ‘Form’8. Technical and Dress: A Unification.9. Previews and the Production Run: Choices and Impact of a ‘Live’ Medium.10. Next Stages: How Should Rehearsal Rooms Operate in the 21st Century?

This book is a great tool to have in a directors arsenal … [It] provides a great balance of theory and methodology for how to conduct a rehearsal that reflects those fundamental shifts.