The Anatomy of Teamwork: Master the Art of Collaboration | Diane Paulus | Big Think

When you work in the theater, you always begin privately. There isn't always an audience. But interestingly, there is always a test of what that relationship to the audience is going to be. So you begin with your team of colleagues. On a musical, you have a big village of people. You have a choreographer, a writer, a conductor, a musical supervisor, and I've always felt the job of a director is to get so obsessed with the subject matter, and then your job is to spread the obsession, and you've got to do that in phases.

So initially, you do it to your inner team. And then there's a moment where you bring actors into that process, and you have to transmit it to your actors. And then ultimately, as a collective, we transmit it to the audience. So my job as the director, even though we don't get in front of the audience until the baby is born and has learned to walk and has done some test experiences, I almost have to stand in for the audience at every phase of the process.

And I often use this expression of you've got to wash your eyes clean, and you have to dare to be what Peter Brook called naïve. You have to be a naïve spectator. And you have to see without desire, which is something I often talk about. You know, how can you look at what you've done and not just get hung up on, "Oh God, the actor didn't do the line the way I wanted them?" No, you can look with a lot of desire, but you can also look without desire.

So you are trying to stand in for that audience at every phase, and by doing that, I think you cast that audience in your head, and you can make a choice about how you're going to cast that audience. And I'm a great believer in the audience being a great partner and the audience wanting to stretch you and the audience wanting to learn. I just think there are human needs. We want to learn; we want to be moved; we want ritual; we want to go through and experience together in life; we want spectacle.

There's a human need for spectacle, and by spectacle, I mean to be in the presence of something larger than yourself. It's why we stand on a beach and look at a horizon line and get lost in it or stand on a mountaintop and look at a vista. That's what we recreate in the theater, is an idea of awe and spectacle so you can feel yourself in the presence of something greater than yourself. So you can make a choice about how you're thinking about the audience and wanting to aim high with your audience.

As I say that, I also believe an audience needs to be diverted. This French word divertissant, entertainment gets a bad word. It's like, "Oh, it's just fluff, it's just entertainment." Like no, we also have a human need to be entertained, to laugh, to leave our current situation and divert from that. So I guess I try to make a show. The ultimate dream show is something that touches on all of those so that you can be challenged in your mind, you can be challenged in your heart.

I actually also believe in the body. I'm so fascinated with all these studies. I have a young daughter, and I remember being told when she was in kindergarten that she might need to see a specialist because she can't sit still. And then all these studies have come out that now actually moving helps you learn, and now we know we stand at desks.

So this idea that the theater is a form that actually also engages your body and vibration. The other thing about the audience is I always like to think about the audience as a creative partner. And what I mean by that is that the audience can meet you more than halfway, and they can help fulfill the moment. So you actually don't have to micromanage and deliver everything.

Actually, the space that you leave for the audience to tap their imagination, to complete something, to bring themselves, is as important as what you provide for an audience. And I think that's also really important in my work with actors. When I direct a show, not only am I trying to, with the actor and the playwright or the composer, make all the decisions about how we're going to tell the story, but I'm also trying to engage the actor to be creative because if they ...