Moving in a different direction (directing down under): the evolution of director training into studies of ‘creative leadership’ in an Australian context

Bonza, beauty, mate: a brief introduction to the Australian context

In Australia, formal training as a director is likely to be completed at university as part of an undergraduate bachelor’s degree, generally as a single unit of study within a broader acting/performance/drama studies programme. Conversely, countries such as the US and UK are understood to have healthy traditions of vocationally aligned MA and MFA programmes, initially emerging to develop advanced acting skills, later evolving to also provide specialist skills in directing (see Connolly 2013; Francombe 2002; Jackson 2001, 2004; Zazzali 2016). Comparably, however, in Australia, despite the influence of the UK and US on many of the nation’s cultural institutions and historical guiding policies, practical options for conservatoire training for directors at postgraduate level are extremely limited.

For Australian students seeking a higher level of learning in director training, the most viable options are found within what is colloquially known as a masters by research, more widely referred to as an MPhil, and PhD modes of study, which bring with them the expectation that the learning will fit within clearly defined research frameworks. For directors, this means that any exercise in attempting to further specialise their skills and knowledge beyond an undergraduate qualification must be conducted through a methodological framework, and for many the most obvious choice becomes practice-led research. While this choice is not inherently problematic, it does leave the potential for the practice being investigated to undergo a kind of panel-beating into performative research, so that it may exist within accepted institutional paradigms even though those paradigms may not be the best fit to explore the practice of directing.

She’ll be right: the research ‘problem’

Research-based methodologies require the problematisation of practice. Students are expected to develop a research question that interacts with the practice in order for it to be answered, which is a very different purpose to an MFA conservatoire-style course, for example, which aims for the mastery of the practical skills and ‘hands-on’ knowledge of directing. But, as Baz Kershaw suggests, the very act of deconstructing performance as research and asking practitioners to predict research journeys, posing targeted research questions in much the same way as scientists and mathematicians do, ‘significantly restricts the exploratory quality of research as all questions imply a limit to their potential answers’ (Kershaw 2009, 112). Furthermore, the problematisation inherent in this context does not work to encourage emerging directors to become better at directing but potentially forces them to materialise a problem with the craft of directing, which is not the same as endeavouring to master the craft itself.

This rationale, to problematise research and prioritise the research question, is further advanced in a world impacted by COVID. Arising from this global health crisis has been the opportunity for many to engage with speculative research – research that develops ‘alternative approaches and sensibilities that take futures seriously as possibilities that demand new habits and practices’ (Savransky 2017, 2), and can ‘help (re)imagine and (re)shape our future’ (Troiano et al. 2021, 49). Speculative research is important if we are to develop better ways of doing things, yet, particularly in the case of practice-led research, it does tend to generate associated speculative projects, which further propose to change or advance the craft of directing without first mastering the skills of a director.

The contention is not that Australia is unique in this respect, nor that research-based options do not exist in other nations, but that Australia has a significant shortfall when it comes to advanced training in the specialist skills and practice of directing. Indeed, where there seems a choice for students in some countries to pursue further education through either research or vocationally aligned study pathways, in Australia that option does not exist and any attempt to complete a postgraduate level of education in directing must almost exclusively be undertaken through a rigorous research lens at a university.

While most Australian cities house a variety of non-university training academies for aspiring actors, there are no well-known vocational training opportunities in directing available through schools, academies, or conservatories that exist outside of academia. Indeed, researchers Brad Haseman and Daniel Mafe (2009), building on a treatise published several years earlier (Haseman 2006), provide a preliminary but unchanged assessment of the Australian landscape, concluding that artists seeking further education are inevitably becoming practitioner-researchers at university and ‘conform[ing] to traditional approaches and research practices with their guarantee of methodological “hygiene”’ (Haseman and Mafe 2009, 212). There are, of course, limited examples of masters by coursework degrees in Australia. The Victorian College of the Arts’ two-year Master of Theatre (Directing) is one prominent example. However, even in this case the coursework degree culminates in a practice-led research performance project or written dissertation, arriving again at the ‘research problem’.

Yeah, nah: demand-driven skills development

The development of theatre arts training in Australia has previously been documented (Hay and Dixon 2015), and for the most part it is understood that Australia inherited the main elements of its traditions of higher education from its former colonial masters, the United Kingdom. Many of these traditions persist in the course structures, pedagogical philosophies, degree progressions, and academic titles of Australian universities. Since the nation’s shift in focus from Europe to North America because of the treaties and alliances arising out of World War II, the United States has also increasingly provided a model of higher learning that has been found appealing to successive Australian governments in shaping their education policies, particularly those governments located on the conservative side of the political spectrum.

The commodification of higher education, embracing the notion of a ‘user pays’ system of transactional learning, and the expansion of executive power in Australian universities resulting in vice chancellors promoted to ‘an American style of Presidential leadership’ (Quiddington 2010, 478), are considered by some as a direct result of adopting US attitudes and policies towards tertiary education. This has led to a corporate homogenisation of university business models across the country’s institutions of higher learning. At the core of this corporate education philosophy lies the notion of demand-driven course offerings – there is only a ‘need’ (i.e. an economic justification) to teach directing if there is a scalable market to attract and fill the auditorium seats. In a rapidly changing world where graduate attributes are routinely paired with employment outcomes and industry needs, how does the craft of directing and its associated skillset fit? For one university in Queensland, core directorial traits of leadership, creativity, concept development, and an entrepreneurial mindset have found themselves at the centre of what are increasingly considered the marketable traits of higher education graduates: transferable skills.

Take a gander: the place of directing in one example of corporatised education

At the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, the directing unit traditionally delivered as part of the Bachelor of Fine Arts (Drama) and Bachelor of Fine Arts (Acting) degrees has been reimagined and retitled ‘Leadership in Creative Contexts: Directing Creativity’. The unit has been opened up to students across the university, able to be studied by anyone enrolled in any course as an elective unit and no longer limited to the study plans of BFA (Drama) or BFA (Acting) cohorts. The unit now follows a modulated learning design, with each learning area segmented into specific themes/topics that have been identified as core directorial skills. These are skills that can be transferred across disciplines and professions, particularly outside of the performing arts. The modules covered within the broader unit are: theory and practice related to leadership and leadership styles, creative and critical thinking skills, concept development and communicating ideas, project management, and entrepreneurship including pitching and artist as small business. Each of these ‘modules’ is covered through blended learning approaches to reach both on-campus and online cohorts (for which read: markets) of students.

If success were measured in enrolment numbers, then the repackaging of directing into a marketable skillset and delivered as a series of transferable qualities has been successful. Being able to attract students from across disciplines and faculties has seen enrolments increase, with uptake from those majoring in business, science, and degrees in health the most noticeable in new class registrations. Student satisfaction surveys also generally rate the subject well, demonstrating a further level of achievement when delivering the content in this way. However, if achievements were to be gauged by measuring the impact on building the capacity of student directors in the craft of directing, and providing an opportunity for them to hone their creative practice, then the outcomes may not appear so favourable.

Along these lines, most problematic is overcoming the logistics of teaching many students the practical and transferable skills of directing, but also providing them with the required number of hours and opportunities to apply that learning in practice. While academia may not strictly demand ideas to be put into practice, particularly when compared to a vocational training institution, understanding the craft of directing surely does require some practice. How the unit might provide an opportunity for hundreds of students to direct a theatrical work, or even a single scene from a theatrical work, with the unit’s available resources, both temporal and economic, is an ongoing obstacle that must be overcome each semester. Here lies a further tension – why is a university required to provide opportunities for practice when it is not a vocational training institution? The answer to this question is encapsulated in the requirement for disciplines to respond to the notion of ‘graduate outcomes’ and ‘industry-ready’ graduates. Universities that follow a model of corporatised education that tracks graduate employability and readiness to directly enter the employment market must also respond to that market’s needs. The theatre industry needs directors who not only have knowledge of skills related to directing, but also practical competency in directing.

No worries: a conclusion

It seems, within an educational context driven by commercial imperatives, there are limited opportunities to provide meaningful contributions to advanced skills development in the field of directing, particularly in an increasingly generalised undergraduate learning environment. While the field of directing has much to offer a diverse range of disciplines and industries, there is cause to consider how the field itself may be better maintained, developed, and supported. This is particularly relevant in an Australian context, where there is an absence of specialised, formal avenues of advanced education focused on mastering the practice itself.

It is uncertain whether offering, for example, US-style postgraduate MFA directing programmes, focused on skills and practice and not exclusively research-oriented, would find appeal or relevance in Australia. While there are many aspects of contemporary Australian culture influenced by and inherited from this powerful imperial nation, every region operates within its own unique set of circumstances. Differences in population sizes, comparably scarce professional opportunities for graduate employment, and a waning yet persistent colonial mindset that training internationally is somehow more valued than learning from your own, are just a few examples of how the Australian context may differ in its ability to support inherited models of higher levels of training for directors. Indeed, it is reasonable to consider that if there were a market for this kind of postgraduate study then it would already have established itself in the local ecology. As universities now demand a business case based on market forces (Christopher, Ukwatte, and Yapa 2020), institutions of higher learning would likely have seized the opportunity were it ripe for the picking. Yet it does seem unhelpful to the directing profession and discipline to only offer research-aligned postgraduate modes of study.

Through broad-based undergraduate units that focus on the generalised transferable skillsets of the director, the importance and applicability of arts-based knowledge and practices are expanded and rendered more visible, and viable, in the context of marketable education and soft-skill-ready graduates. This is a positive thing for the practice of theatre making and directing specifically, as it highlights creative practices as useful beyond the closeted world of the theatre. However, does this really meet the needs of the local, national, and international industries? And how are generalised skillsets, such as theory of leadership and communicating ideas, able to precisely develop expertise in directing for those graduates who are destined to become the next generation of theatre makers? These skills and knowledge are important for directors, for anyone in a position of leadership, but to completely replace the specific skills and practice required to understand directing as a specialist skill is a missed opportunity, as the specialist and the general are most useful when we are given the time and support to teach them both, and as complementary.

There is little to suggest that the prevalence of research-aligned further education for directors in Australia is likely to shift. This means those of our budding directors wishing to formally pursue and specialise in their craft will continue to be left with few options, such as emigrating to other nations that will formally provide them with and recognise those skills. Or perhaps they will simply continue to rely on the knowledge that directing is ‘basically about instinct, and therefore, it cannot be taught’ (Sidiropoulou 2019, 1), finding their way through their own practice, without the opportunity to engage with structures that will develop, formalise, and recognise their skill and mastery.

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Shane Pike

Shane Pike is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Creative Practice, Queensland University of Technology. He is also a practising writer/director with several plays, based on research studying the contemporary identities of young Australians, published by Playlab: https://playlabtheatre.com.au/playwright/shane-pike/.