The theatre director Avra Sidiropoulou* ran a 4hr workshop on Directing Basics with our BA Theatre Students on Tuesday 10th November. The workshop explored fundamental aspects that permeate the work of the stage director in relation to strategies of text analysis, directorial interpretation and point-of-view, as well as of conceiving, designing and orchestrating performance. The students devised work in response to Syrian Refugee Crisis. The workshop examined some of the reasons, means, processes and relationships that are involved in staging a play, especially 
in terms of concept, composition and focus.
*Avra Sidiropoulou is a theatre director and a lecturer at the M.A. Programme in Theater Studies (Open University of Cyprus). Her monograph Authoring Performance. The Director in Contemporary Theatre was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2011.
I am so pleased to read about this as the focussed response to the Syrian refugee crisis is not only relevant but also forefronts the role the arts can play in exploring such crises. Thank you.