In an homage to the business world I work in, I thought I'd do a post that disclosed
The Five Eight Things To Think About Before You Start Choreographing a Play
(I'll even include some stock photography.) It was inspired in part by Chris Brogan's many numbered lists on social media, and in part by a conversation with my friend and collaborator Kristin Olson, who is branching out from dance choreography to choreography for theater with an upcoming PSU production of "Imaginary Invalid." She asked me about my process, and here's a much pithier version of what I said.
1. What Purpose Does this Dance Serve To Tell The Story of This World?
What's it doing there? How does it need to further the story? Does it draw the audience in? Give them a break? Does it change the course of the main character's choices?
2. Know the Play
Inside and out, backwards and forwards. Can't have number one without number two.
3. Ask About Length
It only takes 
a little bit of dance to go from serving the piece to getting in the way of the play, and it takes a shocking amount of time to craft even a minute of choreography, much less teach it. Make sure you're on the same page as the director - which may change of course - but somewhere to start.
4. Technical Considerations
If you don't find out about shoes, dresses, floor covering for the stage, set, rake, props, and all of the other physical implications on the dance, you will be choreographing in a vacuum, and you will be sorry. Even better? The cast needs to complete a set change sometime during the dance. Think it through.
5. Feel the Room
If you don't know the cast, get into rehearsal asap or at least get a contact sheet and some pictures of the actors. For me, it's important to have some sense of their movement in real life to know what I want to do with 'em in the dance.
6. Research, Research, Research
This can go on as lon
g or as short as you have time and patience for. Especially if its a period piece, or you're working in a genre you're not up on. For instance, doing "Romeo & Juliet" at OSF in 2007, Bill asked for high Elizabethan Renaissance dance, as well as hip hop of the present day - neither of which I felt I could roll out of bed doing, if you know what I mean. I took private lessons with Renaissance Dance experts, read a ton of books, watched videos, took hip hop for a few months at Vega Dance Lab - which meant the hip hop for Distracted came a lot easier - and even chaperoned a high school dance to see what the kids were doing. Incidentally, it was pretty dirty - which was great on stage, IMO (you know who you are, Rene Millan).
7. The Troubled Child
Every cast has one person who feels as though they are terrible with choreography and dancing. Be ready to break it down for this person, simplify where you can, throw stuff out, work around and find their strengths.
8. It Ain't About the Choreography
In the end, choreography for theater is not one whit about the steps. It is about the actors' ability to act through the steps. This is something you usually reveal to them at the end, letting them struggle over the minutiae of e
very nuance until 2nd dress, when you realize, "Oh my gosh, if they don't come to life out there, my dance is going to fall flat on its ass." Then you rally and cry and tell them to "throw it all away" and "I don't care about the steps," which confuses but excites them. You bang the drum to have them bring the emotional qualities to the dance, whatever they may be, because by then they have the steps as good as its gonna get. And they remember, oh yeah, it's still acting.