Title: The director's companion
First published: 1998
Description: Mel Shepiro, the author says in the Introduction of the book (p. xiii): "This book does not intend to supplant other directing books that stress mechanics, theory, style, or concepts of directing. This book is about the practicalities of directing, born of many years' experience, and as such, it can be a companion to any text or any teacher's methodology. // This book is a thinly veiled autobiography posing as a textbook. I believe that much of art is autobiographical and that directing is as personal an act as writing or acting. ... Now, we have ask certain questions about the subject itself. What is a director? What does a director do? How is it done? This book is divided in five parts, exploring answers to those three questions. Part 1 is "The Director as Storyteller." This is the heart of the matter. ... Part 2 is "The Director as Interpreter." ... Part 2 also deals with language. ... Part 3 adds another element to the director's job description "Must collaborate." "The Director as Collaborator" deals with the preparation that a director makes and how those preparations affect relationsships with designers, playwrights, producers, and dramaturgs. ... Part 4 is "The Director as Stager." For me getting down to staging the play is the best part of the work. ... Part 5 is a seminar with several graduate directing students. They were asked two questions. First, "What do you think ought to be in a book about directing for today's students?" Second, "What are your questions about directing?"

The author, Mel Shepiro, head of acting at UCLA's Theatre Department & one of the founding members of NYU's School of the Arts Theatre Program where he taught acting & directoring for many years. Later he became the head of the Drama Department at Carnegie Mellon University. He also taught acting privately in New York and Los Angeles.  Mel Shapiro is an American theatre director and writer, college professor, and author.

Trained at Carnegie-Mellon University, Shapiro began his professional directing career at Arena Stage in Washington; he directed at a series of regional theaters, including the Guthrie in Minneapolis, before staging the original off-Broadway production of John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves.

For Broadway, Shapiro co-wrote the book (with Guare) and directed the 1971 musical adaptation of Two Gentlemen of Verona, and directed the 1978 revival of Stop the World - I Want to Get Off with Sammy Davis, Jr. and John Guare's 1979 play Bosoms and Neglect. He has staged works at Lincoln Center and for the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater.

Shapiro was one of the founding members of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and served as the head of the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. He currently is the head of Acting and Music Theatre at UCLA's Theatre Department. 
Shapiro is the author of *The Director's Companion* and *An Actor Performs*.

He is currently working on a musical adaptation of the Odyssey to be performed in June by UCLA undergrads in the theater department. The show is titled "Homer in Cyberspace."
Subjects: Production and direction, Theater
LC classification: PN2053 .S36 1998