Some few managers, like David Belasco and Collin Kemper, attend to the staging of their own productions, and, indeed, are most noted for their skill in this work. Many authors, among the number Augustus Thomas, James Forbes and Charles Klein, "put on" their own plays. Then there are "General Stage Directors", like William Seymour or J. C. Huffman, employed at so much per annum by big firms like those of Charles Frohman or the Shuberts. There are also detached directors, who contract to stage a play here or there at sums varying from five hundred to a thousand dollars for each piece. Julian Mitchell, R. H. Burnside and George Marion head the list of men who make a specialty of producing musical comedy, which is a field in itself. A broad distinction exists between the stage director and the stage manager, the province of the latter being only to carry out the plans of the former.
A dramatic composition is rehearsed from two to four weeks, the rehearsals usually lasting from ten o'clock in the morning until five in the evening, with an hour for luncheon. The play being finished and accepted, the manager turns the manuscript over to the stage director. This gentleman reads it carefully, realizing possibilities and devising "business." I have known authors to write, and directors to read, with a miniature stage beside them. On this stage, pins would take the place of people, being moved here and there as one situation followed another. The exact location of the characters at every speech was then marked on the manuscript, so that little or no experimenting was necessary at rehearsal.
After he has read the play, the director consults with the author and the manager and the scene painter. He helps the manager decide what actors had best be engaged, and the four determine every detail of the settings to be built and painted. Miniatures of these settings are afterward prepared by the artist and officially O. K.'d. The manager interviews such people as he thinks he may utilize, and comes to terms with them. Actors are not paid for time spent in rehearsal, and, if they prove unsatisfactory before the initial performance, may be dismissed without notice and without recompense.
It is an old custom, now in the way of being revived, to begin operations by reading the play to the company. The first rehearsals may take place in a hall, but, whenever it is possible, a stage is brought into requisition. In the centre of the stage, directly back of the footlights, is the prompt table, at which sit the author, the director, and the stage manager. The players, when they are not at work, lounge in remote corners, leaving the greater portion of the floor space cleared for action. There is no scenery, no furniture, no "properties." Two stools, with a space between them, may stand for Juliet's balcony, for the Rialto Bridge, or merely for a window in a modern apartment house. The casual observer may be puzzled at hearing some Thespian harranguing to four vacant chairs, until it is explained that these four chairs mark the corners of a jury box in which twelve good men and true—same being "supers" yet to be employed—are to try the hero for his life.
In the beginning the actors read lines from their parts. A "part" contains the speeches and "business" of the actor for whom it is intended, with "cues", or the last few words of each speech preceding his, so that he may know when to speak. An extract from the "part" of the Queen in "Hamlet" (Act iii; Scene i) would look something like this:
(You enter L.3.E.)
Did he receive you well?
——free in his reply.
Did you assay him to any pastime?
——he suffers for.
I shall obey you. Etc.
The director shows the actor where he shall stand, and where go, at every speech, and the stage manager notes on the manuscript such "business" as is not already written in it. Also, he sets down memoranda for the raising and "dimming" of lights, the ringing of bells, and other things to be done "off stage."
After a couple of days' rehearsal the players may be told that they must have the lines of the first act committed to memory within a certain time. "Letter perfect on Thursday!" says the director. "Don't forget; I want to hear every 'if, 'and', and 'but' spoken on Thursday!"
So, act by act, the piece is learned, and, within a week, "parts" are put away, and the real work of rehearsal begins. By this time, the "roughing out" of the production has been done, positions have been taught, and the director begins devoting himself to details. Throughout the first fortnight he interrupts frequently; compels the people to go back a dozen times over this scene or that; halts, thinks out trifles, suggests and experiments. When the rehearsals are two-thirds done, however, he and the author break in less and less often. They sit, notebooks in hand, jotting down their observations, which are read aloud to the company at the end of each act.