Rule #1: Don’t create good theater. You must intend to create GREAT theater. We don’t need any more perfectly good productions of perfectly good scripts. You are setting out to do something great or it’s not worth doing.
Rule #2: Set that thought aside. Don’t worry about the end product or whether anyone says how great or horrible your show is. Create the show you believe in. Become consumed with process, not product.
Rule #3: Create your own show. Whether you are writing, directing, and performing a wholly original piece, or working with an extant script, make it your own. Don’t bother with trying to hold true to an author’s intentions – you’ll never know them anyway. Make the show true to yourself and what you have to say now.
Rule #4: Know why you are creating this show. The piece you create must be the expression of something about which you feel very deeply. Setting out to make “good theater” is not enough. Take a strong stand – personal, political, social, artistic, – and challenge yourself to express it. Include your performers in this aim.
Rule #5: Make form fit function. Once you have identified why you are creating this show, find the perfect theatrical form to express your beliefs. Whether it be a puppet show, a dance piece, an environmental installation, street theater, sequential art, a guided tour, audience interactive, non-verbal, bare stage, site specific, proscenium, etc., don’t be restricted in your form. Mix and match for specific moments throughout the show.
