Director's Notes: Overview

In 2006, a church group in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, put on the inaugural stage production of the first Liken title, "Nephi and Laban." It was directed by a remarkable young man, Michael Litchfield. Michael is a university student, and despite taking a full course load, managed to find time to direct a fairly sizable stage production.

It was my privilege to attend two performances of this run. I was so impressed with the effort they put into this production. And it showed. Just prior to the final run of the show, I had the opportunity to sit down to breakfast with Michael and ask him what worked, and what he would have done differently. He had a lot of wonderful input.

On top of all that, he put together an incredibly detailed document, called "Director's Notes." Although it is for a different production, and though it is written for a production staged by a group within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I believe it has much applicability to all groups seeking to stage a Liken production.

I will post here some of the highlights of that document in the hopes that it will help you in your efforts. I hope that his description of all that is involved will be a help to you. At first, I wondered if seeing everything that was involved in staging this production written down like this could make some people hesitate to tackle such a project, but in the end, I realized that those who are committed and want their productions to be a success will be grateful for all the information they could get.

Michael is an amazing young man who prepared this to help others who are preparing to take on this challenge. I hope you find it as helpful as I did.