Who were some precursors to the modern-day director?

The theatre has always needed someone to run the show and organize the performance. In different eras, the playwright, an actor, or a manager performed this role. For example, in ancient Greece, the playwright acted in his own plays and hired and trained the chorus. In the Middle Ages, pageant masters organized theatrical events, while, during the sixteenth to the nineteenth-centuries, actor-managers provided coordination for performances. During the eighteenth century in Europe, theatre artists exhibited a growing dissatisfaction with artificial acting style and the lack of a coherent approach to performance. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had his actors read the text together in rehearsal rather than just memorize their own lines from sides. To control visual composition, he drew grid lines on the stage floor to permit precise instructions about how and where to move. Taking control of all the artistic elements on stage, Goethe became a prototype for the future director. Georg II, The Duke of Saxe-Meiningen worked to achieve historical accuracy in costume and setting and, using the visual arts as his guide, arranged actors in interestingly composed stage pictures. His company was renowned for its crowd scenes in which each actor displayed an individual character yet worked in unison with the others. Richard Wagner, with his notion of gesamtkunstwerk or total artwork, asserted a directorial vision for the operas he composed. Using music as the unifying force, Wagner offered a prototype for a unified production style that related form and content.