New Cohort begins Summer 2024
Under special circumstances permission to begin certificate programs in off years may be given by the program director.
The New Play Directing Certificate provides practical experience in playmaking with an emphasis on the specific skills unique to new play development. It offers graduate-level instruction from leading theatre professionals. The certificate in new play directing develops strong candidates for employment in professional, regional, or academic theatres. Highly respected directors, performers, playwrights, and theatre professionals teach in the program. It’s associated with the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University, an internationally recognized graduate program in playwriting.
Courses
Students complete their certificate in play directing in two six-week summer sessions.
In their first summer, directors learn:
- The basics of how new plays are conceived and written
- How to analyze a script for production
- How to collaborate with playwrights and performers on new plays
Directors in their second summer:
- Take a viewpoints and composition course along with playwrights and actors
- Learn how to form and manage their own company devoted to new play production
- Learn how to design production elements in a variety of stages on a variety of budgets
- Learn how to build on methods of collaboration
Directing Opportunities
Each year of the two-year program, directing students will direct a play for our Playwrights Festival, and have their work seen by over a dozen industry professionals.
Ongoing Partnerships
The program works with Roanoke’s Mill Mountain Theatre and a growing network of theatres around the country that specialize in new play development.
Each year we produce, in collaboration with Mill Mountain Theatre, two to four plays by Hollins playwrights as part of the Winter Festival of New Works, and we work to bring back our student performers, directors, and playwrights for those productions — providing transportation, accommodations, and a small meal stipend. These plays are frequently selected for regional and national recognition through KCACTF. Some have even transferred to other theatres around the country.
New Works Initiative
A fund that offsets the costs related to producing work by Hollins’ student playwrights. Students in the New Play Directing Certificate program can apply for production assistance whenever they are directing work generated by Hollins playwrights.
A Bold Approach to New Work
“Hollins directors concentrate on making work, and that’s why they are getting work.”
– Todd Ristau, program director, Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University
Costs
Summer 2023 tuition: $865 per credit hour or $12,110 for the normal load of three four-credit courses and one two-credit course for the term.
- Technology fee: $138 per summer
- New students must pay a nonrefundable deposit of $400 within two weeks of their acceptance. Returning students must pay a nonrefundable deposit of $200 by May 15. All deposits will be credited toward summer tuition charges.
Application Deadline: February 15
-
Apart from Festival, what other directing opportunities will I have during the summer? (New Play Directing Certificate)
In addition to the festival, there are readings of very early drafts of plays every Wednesday night in Lab, and though you are not required to go to Lab for the readings, we really encourage you to do so in order to hear how we discuss new plays, participate in those discussions, and meet the playwrights who might not have been selected for Festival through their work. We encourage our playwrights to also work with directors for these readings, and the same rules apply to them as to festival readings.
Every Friday night we have a venue called No Shame Theatre, where short original performance pieces are staged. The rules are simple: 1) pieces have to be short, no more than five minutes; 2) pieces have to be original, with no copyright violations; and 3) you can’t break anything, including the law. Very often these pieces are fresh out of the printer and have neither been rehearsed nor employ a director. We would love it if having access to directors meant that some of those pieces ended up getting a little more polish.
Halfway through the summer session we partner with Mill Mountain Theatre to present our version of the 24 Hour Plays, which we call Overnight Sensations. At 8 pm on a Friday night, six playwrights are randomly paired with six directors. Then those teams are randomly paired with six pre-selected groups groups of six actors. Then a bunch of writing prompts are drawn and the playwrights get rushed off to the library to write a new 10-minute play based on what they got. Directors usually go to No Shame to take their mind off of worrying about the kind of play they will get in the morning. At 8 am, the playwrights meet the directors at the theatre to read the draft and discuss any changes to the text, then the scripts are printed out while we have a production meeting. Actors arrive at 11 am for lunch and rehearsals begin at noon. At 5 pm we do a cue to cue, and at 7 pm the audience starts arriving. At 8 pm the curtain goes up on six freshly baked new 10-minute plays. The directors are selected from among our certificate students as well as our faculty, guest artists, and local directors. Any certificate directors who are not selected to direct in Overnight Sensations are encouraged to participate as performers if they wish. Everyone is required to attend the performance, however.
There are also other opportunities during the summer, as our playwrights are allowed to check out performance spaces in two hour blocks for their own student initiated projects, like private or public readings and they may request a director to work with their script. You might also like to propose a project of your own or even a devised piece with multiple collaborators.
-
Are actors allowed to decline a role? (New Play Directing Certificate)
Yes and no. Actors who are in the certificate program are not allowed to decline a role, for all of the reasons we mentioned about why directors might have to direct a play they have been assigned rather than chose. There just isn’t time during the summer session to spend on negotiating who is in what shows and the actors also need to learn how to invest in a project that they were not initially excited about. Local actors, however, might decline or drop out, because they don’t have the same consequences for those decisions. Also, these auditions are jointly held for all of the community theatres in the region and some auditioners are there more to be seen by those theatres than they are to be cast in our readings. This is why on every audition form we ask if there are things that the actor would not do on stage (kiss someone, swear, get naked, be up high, etc.) and we also ask about conflicts and whether or not they would accept a role if cast. We try to cover all the bases, but surprises happen and sometimes people change their minds.
-
Do you really look at my grades? (New Play Directing Certificate)
Yes.
-
How do you select your guest speakers and visiting faculty?
One of the greatest strengths of our New Play Directing Certificate program is our visiting faculty and guest artists. Our unique schedule allows some of the best known names in new play development to participate in ways that wouldn’t be possible in a traditional program. Busy working professionals can fit in six weeks of teaching much easier than five months. For the certificate program it is VERY important to us that our faculty not be academics but actual working professionals who can model best practices. Whenever possible, we look for faculty who are also playwrights, or who have extensive experience in working on new plays with playwrights.
We bring in experts representing every aspect of professional theatre—playwrights, agents, directors, artistic directors, dramaturgs, producers, composers, agents, publishers, designers, actors, and lots of other disciplines.
We invite individuals who’ve made an impact on modern theatre with their own work who also have a proven record of successful and inspirational teaching or a history of helping emerging talents find their voice and be heard by a wider audience.
A successful community shares a common philosophy and enthusiasm for the mission it embodies, so we want visiting faculty and guest artists who will be good ambassadors for the program. What our guests and faculty say about Hollins has a huge impact on who is willing to come in the future.
We look at more than resume and reputation, we look for those who are eager to join our community, and excited about helping it grow.
Often, we’ll invite someone as a guest responder for the festival of student readings. If that goes well, we might invite them back as a guest speaker, and then (if it fits our curriculum) we may invite them back for a summer of teaching.
We don’t want people who are trying to find work, we want people who will help us create new work together.
-
How do you select your guest speakers and visiting faculty? (New Play Directing Certificate)
One of the greatest strengths of our New Play Directing Certificate program is our visiting faculty and guest artists. Our unique schedule allows some of the best known names in new play development to participate in ways that wouldn’t be possible in a traditional program. Busy working professionals can fit in six weeks of teaching much easier than five months. For the certificate program it is VERY important to us that our faculty not be academics but actual working professionals who can model best practices. Whenever possible, we look for faculty who are also playwrights, or who have extensive experience in working on new plays with playwrights.
We bring in experts representing every aspect of professional theatre—playwrights, agents, directors, artistic directors, dramaturgs, producers, composers, agents, publishers, designers, actors, and lots of other disciplines.
We invite individuals who’ve made an impact on modern theatre with their own work who also have a proven record of successful and inspirational teaching or a history of helping emerging talents find their voice and be heard by a wider audience.
A successful community shares a common philosophy and enthusiasm for the mission it embodies, so we want visiting faculty and guest artists who will be good ambassadors for the program. What our guests and faculty say about Hollins has a huge impact on who is willing to come in the future.
We look at more than resume and reputation, we look for those who are eager to join our community, and excited about helping it grow.
Often, we’ll invite someone as a guest responder for the festival of student readings. If that goes well, we might invite them back as a guest speaker, and then (if it fits our curriculum) we may invite them back for a summer of teaching.
We don’t want people who are trying to find work; we want people who will help us create new work together.
-
How many directors do you accept? (New Play Directing Certificate)
No more than 10 for each two-year cohort rotation.
“When you are directing a new play, the hardest thing for a director is to put into his or her mind that you’re not supposed to showcase your directing skills… what you’re supposed to do is to set up a framework in which the playwright can see their play. To see the things they are questioning about the play, and the things you are questioning about the play.”
Select link in Lower Single Testimonial block
