Exposition

Reinventing Regietheater: The Actor-Director Relation in Rehearsals (2025)

Johannes Maria Schmit
open exposition

About this exposition

This thesis investigates the crisis of Regie (i.e. of the agency of directing) in a post-#MeToo landscape. It argues that the outset of this crisis lies in an expansionist gesture – rooted in the avant-gardist ambition to merge art and life – by which directors have conflated artistic mandate with managerial control; a gesture culminating in the toxic institutional cultures painfully exposed during the last decade. Starting from this point of no return, the thesis examines the question of how to acknowledge the fact of directorial power abuse without cutting our practices off from the potential – or even the necessity – of directorial agency as such. Its title “Reinventing Regietheater” thus carries the tension between a historical form of theater (generally known as “directors’ theater”) and a yet-to-be-found future expression. Conceived as artistic research, the discrete focus of the thesis is the rehearsal space and its confines. Within the micro-scale of the latter, the crisis of Regie reverberates first and foremost in the non-foreseeable instances of the actor-director interaction; namely in the increasing scrutiny applied to the tool of improvisation. In contrast to the prevailing strategy of eroding the rehearsal space’s symbolic boundaries (in the interest of directorial accountability), the thesis conceptualizes – practically as well as theoretically – a “Space of Rehearsals” as a heteronomous zone of safe but ecstatic play. This “Space of Rehearsals” is constructed through a rehearsal method informed by the psychoanalytic concept of transference as well as the interaction framework “Wheel of Consent”. To answer its main questions, the thesis presents a “written part” as well as a set of “online resources” containing the documentation and “re-stagings” of the practical experiments. Four “books of Regie” present methodological reflections, a critical genealogy of a theater of directing (based on the author’s symptomatic practice) as well as the central concepts. Three so-called “Pre-studies”, devised through practical work with professional actors/collaborators form the empirical basis of the thesis, sketching out different possibilities for the actor-director relation in a re-invented Regietheater. In the proposition resulting from the above, directorial agency does not necessarily sit with the director. Nevertheless, the disciplinary divide between actor and director is upheld; as well as the radical asymmetry in the distribution of authorial power, albeit in temporally limited and co-curated iterations. The main argument of the thesis is thus that the artistic potential of the historical form of Regietheater can be salvaged without taking a revanchist or revisionist stance: the idiosyncratic directorial agency known as Regie has its place in consent-based rehearsal settings.
typeresearch exposition
keywordsRegietheater, regiteater, directors’ theater, Postdramatic theater, performing arts, director studies, consent, Wheel of Consent, asymmetry, Psychoanalysis, transference, Actor-director relation, rehearsals, Directing pedagogy, Acting pedagogy, Phronesis, Volksbühne, improvisation, live directing, accountability, ethics, theater, artistic research
date14/11/2025
published14/11/2025
last modified14/11/2025
statuspublished
affiliationStockholms konstnärliga högskola
copyrightJohannes Maria Schmit; Betty Martin, Chantal Akerman Foundation, Zentropa entertainments
licenseCC BY-NC-ND
languageAmerican English
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2649533/2649531/1895
published inStockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
portal issue0. X-position
external linkhttp://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uniarts:diva-2249


Copyrights

namesarah´s,_the_actress´,_edit_with_english_subs (1080p).mp4
copyrightjms, music publisher
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usagesvideo
nameSarah Still I trust this life off-stage
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namejohannes,_the_director´s,_edit_with_english_subs (1080p).mp4
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nameI trust this life off-stage
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nameDirector in SERVE (excerpt of an improvisation)
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nameThumbnail for Director in SERVE - the right one
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nameLETTER TO JOHANNES
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nameLETTER TO CLAIRE
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nameSplitscreen Sarah Johannes 30.6.
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nameFINAL_REGIEBUCH 1-4_Pre-studies double pages
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nameCover written part
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namePre-Study #2 (Claire's Director)_ohne QR code
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namePS#2 Cover - the right one
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nameFINAL_REGIEBUCH 2_Pre-studies single pages
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namePre-Study #3 (Anders' Director)_ohne QR code
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namecover pre-study #3
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nameFINAL_REGIEBUCH 1_Pre-studies single pages
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nameFINAL_REGIEBUCH 3_Pre-studies single pages
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nameFINAL_REGIEBUCH 4_Pre-studies single pages
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namePre-Study #1 (Sarah's Director)_ohne QR code
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namecover pre-study #1
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namePre-study #1 Diary 28.10._small for RC
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nameWheel of Consent_intermediate Read for RC_6.11
copyrightjms Betty Martin
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usagespdf
nameWheel of Consent_intermediate Read for RC_6.11 2
copyrightbetty martin, jms
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usagesimage
nameA Study in Transference_no voice over
copyrightJMS Akerman Foundation
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nameThumbnail for A study in Transference
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nameThe Actor-Director Relation in cm
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nameThumbnail for Actor Relation in cm
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nameDouble screen_work demo edit_for RC
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nameBildschirmfoto 2025-02-10 um 20.24.44
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nameOffice och webb logotyp SKH black
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