About the Book:

So You Want to Be a Theatre Director? is a hands-on, step-by-step guide to directing plays – by Stephen Unwin, one of Britain's leading theatre directors.

As artistic director of English Touring Theatre ("the company of the moment" – Daily Mail), Stephen Unwin has worked with hundreds of different actors in a multiplicity of different venues. He is the ideal author of a how to guide to directing.

Starting at the very beginning, So You Want to Be a Theatre Director? takes you step by step: choosing the play; casting; design; rehearsal; establishing facts; improvisation; language; character; blocking; using specialists; running the play; putting it on the stage; opening night; and so on.

What people say:

"Directing plays is difficult. The aim of this book is to lay out what skills are needed, and to give some sense of how you might develop them. The emphasis is on the professional theatre, but the book is useful for directors in other contexts – amateur dramatics, university drama, school plays and so on. Directing is directing, wherever you do it." — Stephen Unwin, from So You Want to Be a Theatre Director?

"So You Want to be a Theatre Director does exactly what it says on the cover. It is aimed primarily at the young would-be professional theatre director, though much of it will also be of interest to those working in the amateur sphere. The writing is clear and direct; the chapters are divided into conveniently headed sections… His [Unwin's] book is filled with wise insights. Any budding director who reads is will learn much about the pitfalls and challenges he or she is likely to face but will also, I'm sure, catch some of Unwin's enthusiasm for what he describes as being, at times, 'the best job you can imagine." — Around the Globe

"Stephen Unwin is a perfectionist who grasps very quickly what a play has to say and how it needs to say it. His book So You Want to be a Theatre Director? should be required reading not just for people within the theatre industry, but anyone setting out to lead any kind of human endeavour at all. He understands above all things the human psyche." — The New European

About the Author:

Stephen Unwin is an English theatre director. He completed his studies at Cambridge University in 1981, and has since directed over 50 professional productions and 12 operas. He founded English Touring Theatre in 1993, after a career as a freelance theatre director, which included work at the National Theatre, the Royal Court and the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh (where all his productions, of which 6 had London transfers, were new writing). He launched the English Touring Theatre in June 1993, and directed for it until 2008, when he became the second director (after Peter Hall) of the Rose Theatre, Kingston. He has also directed in Europe and in British rep.