Can Katie Mitchell's preproduction techniques be applied successfully to a musical theatre text, based on exploration of several techniques to Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street?

Abstract

This study intends to ascertain whether or not the preproduction techniques developed by play and opera director Katie Mitchell can be successfully applied to a musical theatre text. This has been explored through the practical application of Mitchell's The Director's Craft: A Handbook for the Theatre (2009) in application to Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979). The aims of this study are twofold. Firstly, it intends to test if Katie Mitchell's pre-production techniques can be applied to a musical theatre text. The outcome of this aim will be ascertained through the use of a directorial folio and a separate analytically reflective dissertation. Also covered within the written component has been the process and outcomes of the second aim: to build an understanding of how different pre-selected techniques and phases of preproduction preparation, based on Mitchell's book, can aid an emerging director's skill set development. The outcomes of this study are that several of Mitchell's techniques, regarding world of the play and character development, can be applied to a musical theatre text, whereas methods intended to find connections between the writers life and the text, as well as genre, may not always be applicable.