DIRECTORS CIRCLE

WHAT IT IS

A GARDEN FOR NEW DIRECTORS

Organizer Natalyn McCants compares Directors Circle to a garden: a place where people new to directing grow alongside people already rooted in the field. Members proposed it in October 2020 with one goal, to give Black women real directing opportunities and build enough working directors to change who gets hired.

Each guest director led a two-week block. Participants were handed scenes to direct, took turns acting and directing for each other, showed their work to the group and workshopped it together. Sessions also covered how to find and submit for directing jobs.

WHO IT SERVED

MEMBERS WHO NEEDED THE FIRST CREDIT

The circle was open to any BTGM member interested in directing, with no experience required. Education Director MaRah Williams framed the problem the program answers: you need the experience to get the job, and you need the job to gain the experience.

It was offered free to remove cost as a barrier. The grant paid guest directors, a teaching assistant and the actors who worked the scenes, because BTGM holds that learning should be free and labor should be paid.

HOW IT RAN

SPRING 2021 CYCLE

• March 23 and 30, 2021. Nikki Brake-Sillá
• April 6 and 13, 2021. Lynne Streeter Childress
• April 20 and 27, 2021. Malika Oyetimein
• May 4 and 11, 2021. Bianca Laverne Jones
• Theatre match. Participants are connected with theatres looking for up-and-coming BIPOC directors.
• Funding. One of 11 recipients of the 2021 Diversity in the Arts grant.