THE DIRECTOR‟S DILEMMA: BALANCING TEACHING AND SHOW-MAKING WITH ACTORS-IN-TRAINING
The duty of a play director in an educational theatre is to teach students how to act and to ensure that play production meets acceptable standard for the audience who will watch the performance. He will strive to strike a balance to see that both teaching and rehearsals for performance get fair shares of his attention. This study looks at how directors can balance both roles when working with students actors. We used the 2025/2026 THA 313: PRICIPLES OF ADAPTATION play VENDETTA, story to stage, directed by Branco Ayomide Samuel and Staged managed by Popoola Lateefat Fadekemi as our case study. The data was derived from the director‘s interview, focus group discussion with twenty 300-level cast members who watched the rehearsals from week one to the performance day. The study is hinged on the theories of Stanislavski, Meyerhold and Brecht. While Stanislavski totally agree that the actor needs relaxation and concentration, Meyerhold stresses the need for physical training to condition the human body to handle assignments. Brecht on the other hand posits that actors must recognize the role or importance of the audience and should not be afraid of them or frightened by their presence. Nonetheless, Grotowski maintained that it is more profitable to train an actor than wasting time in decorating the theatre as theatre can be poor. The data was analyzed through interviews with the director, focus groups with eight students namely, Bodun Demoyosore, Agu Gabriel, Edeth Humble, Oyekunle Israel, Adesuyi Ayomide Emmanuel, Durodola Oluwatofunmi Opeyemi, Bajo Benjamen, Adewuyi Adebukola and the notes from rehearsal. Findings show that the director constantly switched roles, sometimes he was a teacher, stopping to explain and demonstrate and at other times, he was a director, pushing for pace and polish. The main pressure points were: 1) Time vs. skill: students needed time to learn basics like body position and voice, but the production calendar was only six weeks; 2) Props vs. process: bringing real guns, food, and costumes too early slowed learning, but bringing them too late caused panic; 3) Audience vs. safety: the BOUESTI audience was critical and volatile, so the director had to prep students emotionally while still protecting their confidence. Educational theatre can do both: train the actor and honor the audience. But only if the director plans for the dilemma instead of pretending it doesn‘t exist.
Keywords: Director, Dilemma, Balancing, Teaching. Show-Making, Actors-In-Training