MFA Directing Satisfactory Progress

What Does ‘Satisfactory Progress’ Mean?

As a professional training program, the Directing program of the University of Washington is concerned with several factors regarding the satisfactory progress of MFA candidates in directing. A student making satisfactory progress is expected to be making progress in most of these areas in each quarter of their residency. While many of these criteria may be subjective, and while it is impossible to categorically determine any particular artist’s potential success in this field, it is the conviction of the Directing Faculty that these are the most relevant criteria in determining a student’s potential for a successful career directing for the performing arts. There are many intersections and those intersections influence how each is exhibited project by project.

All students' progress is reviewed quarterly at evaluation reviews. If a student is not making satisfactory progress they may be placed on “Warning,” “Probation,” or “Final Probation” and will receive a letter as notification of their status, as outlined in the Graduate School’s Policy Memo 16 Academic Performance and Progress. This letter will contain information on steps necessary to return to good standing, and the consequences if the student’s work continues to fall below acceptable standards.

Dramaturgical skills (for the following, references to ‘text’ might refer to dramatic, musical and/or physical text:)

1. Ability to read and understand dramatic texts in a variety of genres including classical, contemporary, and avant-garde texts from a wide variety of cultures for a variety of audiences.
2. Understanding of differences in language styles including, for example, linear storytelling, verse, and abstract language, as well as the potential impact of these styles in storytelling.
3. Understanding of dramatic structure, and the ability to articulate that understanding
4. Ability to clearly understand the complexity of individual characters and their relationships to one another in dramatic or other sources of text.
5. Ability to apply the above dramaturgical skills in service to the effectiveness of dramatic storytelling.

Leadership skills:

1. Ability to guide a theatrical work from conception through production utilizing the skills of communication, teambuilding, decision making, collaboration and problem solving.
2. Ability to formulate and articulate the central vision/idea/question/action in a way that inspires the other artists in the process.
3. Ability to facilitate the work of others in service of the central idea – operating collaboratively to maximize synergy.
4. Ability to hold on to and stand by a strong set of values.
5. Ability and willingness to have effective communication including fierce and difficult conversations with compassion and respect.
6. Ability to actively listen, focus completely on a speaker, understand their message, comprehend the information, and respond thoughtfully.
7. Ability to take initiative to keep a project moving forward.

Craft/Compositional/Visual Storytelling skills:

1. Ability to implement the concepts and principles of staging which include: composition, picturization, rhythm/tempo/mood, transitions, entrances/exits.
2. Ability to stage events well enough to convey visual ideas that can be understood accurately by a wide variety of viewers, (e.g., collaborating artists, technicians, actors, designers, audiences etc.)
3. Ability to coach actors in their process: supporting their choices, offering alternatives, facilitating experiments, and editing as needed to work with the core vision.
4. Familiarity with the design skills of draw/paint/model/drafting – so that one can ask effective questions and support efforts to find solutions that strengthen a production.
5. Ability to find and maintain the style of a production insuring its consistency

Collaboration skills:

1. Ability to work effectively with other collaborators in the creation of a cohesive production built on the central vision of the project.
2. Ability to work effectively and with actors, dancers, singers, other performers, and technicians in the seamless integration of a unified production.
3. Awareness and sensitivity to the concerns and issues of all collaborators on a performance including designers, performers, technicians, and other players involved in the production.
4. Politeness.
5. Cultural awareness and respect for collaborators.

Presentation/Communication skills:

1. Ability to effectively communicate vision and dramaturgical ideas in small group meetings such as design or concept meetings with producers, choreographers, or designers.
2. Ability to effectively communicate dramaturgical ideas, and details about the production’s core and connecting elements as they might be related to producers, actors, technicians in large group meetings such as initial production presentations and talk backs.
3. In culturally/racially-specific or gender-specific work: The ability to respond appropriately to the work’s self-articulated point of view/sensitivity to cultural, racial or gender representation. This does not preclude the adaptation of a unique point of view about a work, but does require an awareness and acknowledgement of current acceptable practices of representation.

Organizational skills:

1. Effectively and efficiently manage the casting, rehearsal, and tech processes.
2. Ability to deliver decisions according to a previously agreed upon time schedule, (which may include the ability to effectively negotiate such a time schedule.)
3. Ability to adjust and improvise production decisions and specifications to fit within specific budget guidelines.
4. Developing a timely and effective work process that allows the above to happen without serious compromise to the artistic integrity and/or effectiveness of the production.