Book excerpt: DreamWork: A Training for Directors provides a theoretical basis and a highly detailed, practical, step-by-step blueprint for developing a directorial concept for a play. Directing is a complex, multi-staged artistic process which, for the most part, is a collaborative work of art. The director works with designers, composers, choreographers and actors to create the performance that is eventually shown to an audience. In this process, there is one stage of the director’s work which is uniquely personal and individual: the creation of a directorial concept. This book concentrates on this crucial stage of the director’s work, offering a template for the creation of a directorial concept prior to embarking on the collaborative stage of the director’s work. The book follows the process from the choice of the text, through a series of clearly documented and structured sets of strategies with attendant examples, up to the creation of the director’s version of the original play - the adaptation - that is the starting point for the director’s dialogue with designers, composers, choreographers and actors. DreamWork: A Training for Directors is intended for directing students at universities or theatre academies, both at undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as directors at the beginning of their careers.