Second Thought Theatre’s Associate Director Program is a year-long cohort aimed at providing professional development through education, exposure, and opportunity. 

 

Three early-career professionals will have the opportunity to assist on one production of our 2025 season, gain training and receive feedback from professional directors, spend the year working on scene study with Artistic Director Carson McCain, and then end their year with each director taking the lead on 1-3 readings for our 2025 Thought Process new play readings. 

 

The purpose of this cohort is to fill a gap we currently see in the DFW arts community. We want to offer early-career directors a safe place to develop their craft and seek feedback from their peers and other professionals. We want this to be a group that allows directors to grow without the pressures of impressing a professional theater in order to be hired again. STT will serve as facilitators and educators, giving feedback, training, and a place to ask questions. 

 

• Each cohort member will be assigned one of our three plays to assistant direct. They will partner with the director of that piece to observe and collaborate on the entire production. 

  • Additionally, the two cohort members not assigned to a particular show will be invited to observe and learn from the tech process of the other two shows in the season. 

 

• Beyond observing professional directors and their process, we would also like to give the members of the cohort a chance to work scenes in a low-stakes environment, receiving feedback on their style and process from STT’s Artistic Director, Carson McCain.

  • This would be in the form of a scene study, where directors would work a scene with actors in real time, practicing how they give notes to those they are working with for the first time.

    • Meetings will take place (usually) every other month, 6 times per year, with each director guaranteed the opportunity to share their work at least twice throughout the year.

 

• Finally, each Associate would finish off the year by directing at least one of the final presentations of our Thought Process Playwrighting Cohort. Playwrights in this cohort end the year with the option to produce a staged reading of their work. Our directors would partner with our playwrights to stage these readings for either public or invited audiences. In this way, they would have the opportunity to practice directing professional actors and have their work be seen by the theater community in DFW.

 

Directors will also be given two comps to each show in our 2025 Season! 

 

Application Information

APPLICATIONS TO THE 2025 COHORT ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED

APPLICATIONS FOR THE 2026 COHORT WILL OPEN IN DECEMBER!

STAY TUNED!

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