"My note to my future Actors: "
Directing is a very personal process. There is nothing more intimate and more divine than creating another human being with someone. Each character we bring to life – hand in hand – is not only the playwright’s but the actor and director’s own unique creation.
Bringing a production to fruition is akin to the glorious miracle of giving life in many ways. My approach to every play is going to be as personal and different as each process I utilize toward each actor. How I work with every actor is going to be based on that individual personality, training, background, experience and the finding the most appropriate, effective means of communication. I’m not a director who is fond of sitting around a table with actors talking a lot. Don’t get me wrong. I love talking with actors and it’s absolutely essential that every member of the creative team thoroughly understands the material and is a collaborator in the truest sense of the word. But I believe that actors should do their homework. I come into the first day of rehearsal knowing every word in that script. I have lived with that play gestating in my head for months, sometimes years. I expect actors to have given thought to the personality of their character, examined the motivations and imagined many possibilities of choices they may explore on the journey for which we are all about to embark.
I am a firm believer in theater as a collaboration and every step of the way I expect an actor to come to the work with ideas, creativity and an openness to taking risks. In an actor I require energy, discipline, positivity, flexibility, concentration and the same 100% commitment that I bring to my work.
I have an amazing amount of patience and respect for the struggle an actor must face in the pursuit of absolute honesty and authenticity in every moment of every performance. I’ve been there. I know the challenges. But I have a very low tolerance for ego, stubbornness, negativity, laziness, selfishness, and disregard for the greater good of the material and needs of the other players and the play.
If you come on board with me we are a team: playwright, producer, designers, actors, director --- no one person or one facet is more significant than the other. All must leave their egos and their dramas outside the door.
If you are on my team then don’t expect me to tell you what to do. I don’t believe in director as dictator. My job is to empower you to do yours. I help to create the environment and provide nuture and inspiration necessary to enable the artist to be the best they can possibly be. If you think acting is easy then perhaps you have come to the wrong place. If you expect to work with me and do anything but your best I suggest you find the door. I am not perfect. I do not come in with all the answers. That would be absurd. We find them together. We will not leave a project without having learned a great deal from each other --- this I promise.
I work closely with playwrights to develop new works, inspire, and bring their visions to life!
A director who sees her passion as making the work "work" by whatever means necessary!
A director who sees her passion as making the work "work" by whatever means necessary!
Celine Havard has directed, acted and produced regionally, Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway for over three decades. Havard directed American premieres of EXIT ENTRANCE by Aidan Matthews and WHEN I WAS A GIRL I USED TO SCREAM AND SHOUT by Sharman MacDonald at the Walnut Street Theatre. Directing and acting in many developing works, Havard was also a founding member of Abingdon Theatre Company, Stagedotorg and The Alternative Theatre Company. Credits at Pulse Ensemble Theatre include the Off-Broadway premiere of CAPTIVE (published by Samuel French) and SESSION by Broadway playwright Lezley Steele. She's worked with many NYC theater organizations including Intar, the Women’s Project, the Drama League, Peacock Productions, Cowgirl Productions, The New Professional Theatre and the Manhattan Theatre Club. Havard edits books, plays for stage and screenplays as a Script Doctor and ghost writer. Havard's job is to serve, to share knowledge and to help her collaborators and see them go out into the world with a product and/or a production that is going to better the world in some way!