Dramaturgy

In April of 2009, dramaturgs on the Dramaturgy Digest listserv attempted to describe what it is we do. It began as a conversation of how to market a dramaturgy class, but mutated into a good old-fashioned define-off. There are a number of different authors; I did not try to keep them all straight, but I think I finally got the chronology right, which was a trick due to the various time zones of the different contributors. I have my own opinions, but it may be interesting to see where my colleagues agree and disagree:

Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 20:19:21 -0600
Dear ‘Turgs:
I am trying to increase interest (and enrollment!) in a dramaturgy course. My question to you wise folks out there is: How can I market this class to the current generation of students? Have any of you had success in sexing up dramaturgy for those who have not yet been converted to the dark side? Or to those who have no earthly idea what dramaturgy is?

Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 10:35:29 -0400
Dramaturgy is an all-inclusive, comprehensive art. It is the thing of the future. Actually, it is the thing of the present, which all undergraduates should be studying. Colleges across the nation are sprinting to get a dramaturgy course into their curriculum. It will soon (in a few years, depending on how long it takes the economy to recover) be an established undergraduate major within the theatre arts curriculum.
The days are gone when we dramaturgs need to position ourselves as outside the mainstream. Yes, some (maybe all) of us have a stubborn, independent streak which helped us (or forced us) into dramaturgy. But being oppositional does not serve us anymore. Let’s face it. We’re mainstream and there’s no shame in that.
So as far as getting students into classes, I’d say it would be wise to look around at what’s been put up on campus, and regionally, and in famous theatres they would probably be attending, and make a very practical list of what tasks the dramaturgs performed, what materials they produced, and what functions they performed in the pre-production process and rehearsal room. You can’t argue with pages and pages results. And they’ll see how fascinating the work is. I’m a dramaturg because I love the work. It’s fascinating!
Also, don’t militantly separate “the dramaturg” from other positions on the production list and make it a battle cry. It’s wiser to admit and reveal (quite rightly) that everyone is a dramaturg. Everyone does dramaturgical tasks during every production – and in everyday life. We all dramaturg our own lives. If you give them an opportunity to study this way of practicing dramatic art, and propose it as a chance to hone skills that they will use the rest or their lives, I think they’ll register for your course. Dramaturgy. It’s what everybody’s doing.

Date: Apr 3, 2009, at 2:23 PM
Thanks.  But – what actually is it? Brief definition for marketing flyer?

Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:50:16 -0400
To be really technical and not very marketing-y, this is how I tell my friends and family (and all those people who started with “so, what do you do?”):
A Dramaturg is the person who makes sure a production is true to the vision of the playwright and to the play’s setting.
My film friends compare it to a script advisor in their discipline, I believe.

Date: Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 3:07 PM
Many thanks – but while “the person who makes sure a production is true to the vision of the playwright and to the play’s setting” is clear and simple, it sounds more like the definition of the director’s job.  What is it about a dramaturg that is differentiates them from a director?
Script Advisor seems a practical term. Can anyone define the differences between ‘Script Advisor’ as the film world sees the job, and ‘dramaturg’?

Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 15:37:34 -0400
Here’s my elevator-speech:

The dramaturg is the artist within the collaborative process who seeks out and presents pathways into the world of the play for all the various constituencies (actors, designer, marketers, development staff, donors, community members, audiences, civic leaders, etc etc, etc).

——This is when the subject line changed from Marketing Dramaturgy to Defining Dramaturgy, and a new question was posed——–

Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 08:41:18 +1300
I am interested in the term “production dramaturgy.”  Can you define the particular responsibilities that you see coming under this heading?

Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 15:24:48 -0400
I say that I’m a literary and historical consultant who does script development and production dramaturgy.

Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 12:44:25 -0700
What I’ve been telling people about the role of dramaturg is that it’s a liaison between director and playwright, and the responsibility consists of play analysis and researching background information to help fulfill a playwright’s vision on stage.

Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 16:10:56 -0400
I’d really like to know whether there is anyone on this list who does NOT think that the dramaturg’s primary function is to “serve the vision of the playwright” or to advocate for the integrity of the text. After all, dramturgs sometimes work with found texts, with devised performances, and with companies like the Wooster Group, The Builders’ Association, and Radiohole. And isn’t there sometimes a reason to react AGAINST a text when staging it? Isn’t that battle sometimes a productive one? Don’t some texts deserve to be challenged rather than either perpetuated or forgotten?

End of Dramaturgy Digest, Vol 16, Issue 9
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Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 16:11:27 -0400
This one is intentionally abstract, allowing for all sorts of variations in the rough-and-tumble of practical theatre life:

“Dramaturgy is the subtle art of mediating between the provocations of dramatic theory and the discoveries of theatrical practice.  Working in whatever modes are appropriate, in close collaboration with other theatre artists, the dramaturg’s goal is to ensure that the theatre integrates its body, its mind, and its spirit into an energetic, multivalent whole.”

It’s a real conversation stopper!

End of Dramaturgy Digest, Vol 16, Issue 10
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Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 09:27:48 +1300
That’s interesting. I’d really like to know whether there is anyone on this list who doesn’t think that the DIRECTOR’s primary function is to “serve the vision of the playwright” and to advocate for the integrity of the text.

Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 14:19:07 -0700 (PDT)
I like in the article “What the Heck’s a Dramaturg” when the Timeline Theatre Dramaturg calls herself an “information designer.” While maybe this title is not comprehensive, nuanced, and inclusive of all the things dramaturgy can do, I’ve found that undergrads like this as a starting point. I consider it a cocktail party description of dramaturgy, since most people have some understanding of set or costume design but are baffled by the d-word.

Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 15:39:48 -0600
In response to your question, I don’t think my primary function as a dramaturg is to “serve the vision of the playwright,” especially if that playwright is long dead. (In new play dramaturgy, I might agree that my primary function is to do this–or at least, to serve the needs of the playwright and the play.)
I think that we get into the problem of the “intentional fallacy” if we think of ourselves as somehow trying to realize a playwright’s “vision”—it assumes that the author is the source of all possible meaning. Indeed, there are many texts (canonical and not) that need to be challenged. And, as you point out, there may be no single “playwright” in collaboratively created performances.
I think of myself more as an advocate for the audience than the playwright.
Or perhaps more precisely as an advocate for the *text in performance*–I am an advocate for a dialectical process of meaning-making among people, including the artists and the audience.
Of course, this is not something I’d want to put on the flyers for my class… It’s not pithy or sexy enough for a marketing phrase.
Speaking of Play Doctors and Script Doctors: in a recent conversation with a
physician about dramaturgy, he mis-remembered the name of the job and referred to it as “dramatology.” I rather liked this malapropism.

Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 11:23:40 +1300
Thanks – can you tell me, when you have a student who shows strong skills as (in your words) “an advocate for a dialectical process of meaning-making among people, including the artists and the audience”, what is it about them that would stop you encouraging them to be a director (who is an advocate for just the same things) rather than a dramaturg? What are the differentiating qualities, in your view?

Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 17:26:53 -0500
I define the dramaturg as the member of the production team whose first priority is preserving the strength of the performance text, whether it be a new, original work or pre-existing classic.  I see my role as a bridge/mediator between the text, artists, and audience, collaborating with a wide variety of individuals to make sure that what makes its way to the stage in the production is the best representation of both the text’s literary and performative potential.
This does not necessarily mean that the written text possesses ultimate primacy or authority but it is always the primary reference point for discussion.
The skilled dramaturg possesses the tools to speak to directors, designers, actors, critics, academics, and audiences with equal ease.

Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 16:44:02 -0600
I don’t think that being a dramaturg excludes one from being a director (or vice versa). I suppose if I saw someone who was not a particularly strong leader, that might suggest that person would make a better dramaturg than director, and hence I might steer them toward dramaturgy. (I’m not saying that dramaturgy cannot benefit from leadership skills, but I don’t know that they are required at the same level as in directing.)
In addition, I see the dramaturg as more closely allied with the audience than the director is. To do the work that I do as a dramaturg, I can’t be in the rehearsal hall for every day. I need a bit of critical distance from the decisions being made by director and actors so that my vision stays fresh and I can still see the story unfolding each time I watch a scene or a run (as opposed to seeing the actor who is not taking a note the director gave the last time they ran the scene).
Another difference between dramaturg and director (again, to me) has to do with decision making. The director is an executive. S/he makes decisions about all sorts of artistic and practical issues. The dramaturg is an executive in some senses (s/he makes choices about what sorts of materials to provide to the production team and the audience–what “pathways into the world of the play,” as Ilana says, s/he will make available), but perhaps more importantly the dramaturg asks questions, which is not an executive task but a facilitative one. S/he helps the other members of the team make decisions about their artistic choices, and perhaps helps them see a broader array of choices than they initially believed were available.
As someone pointed out earlier in this discussion, all members of a production team do dramaturgical tasks. So the director can (and probably should) be doing her own dramaturgy to some extent.

End of Dramaturgy Digest, Vol 16, Issue 11
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Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:44:51 -0400
I certainly don’t think the dramaturg’s job is always to “serve the playwright” and “advocate for the integrity of the text’. But sometimes it certainly is, say with a new play that is having an early production with writer in residence to work on the script. In the case of devised performances and ensemble creations, well, the new event that is being created IS the “play,” and the dramaturg is presumably working towards a common creative goal with the company or other collaborators. In other words, the dramaturg is an advocate for the new piece or event that is being created. I don’t see this is as a problem. Do you? Copyright issues aside (a separate issue), I’m all for interactions and reactions with, against, and amongst plays. Most exciting productions of classic texts are in some kind of dialogue with the countless other interpretations, cuttings, slashings, adaptations, and reactions as well as with the text itself. Still, such explorations surely benefit from a solid understanding of the text on many levels (writer’s intent, included) whether or not one is promoting or protecting it. So a dramaturg’s work to understand the writer’s vision can be a part of the development of a piece that reacts against that vision.

End of Dramaturgy Digest, Vol 16, Issue 12
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Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 12:35:42 -0400
I’m coming to this one a little bit late, but Frank’s, Melissa’s, and Raffia’s comments were all fascinating to me. In response to Raffia’s comments (“I’d really like to know whether there is anyone on this list who doesn’t think that the DIRECTOR’s primary function is to ‘serve the vision of the playwright’ and to advocate for the integrity of the text.”) I imagine there are many on this listserv who would be excited to see directors react against, challenge, or interrogate texts instead of serving what they see as intention and preserving perceived integrity. But of course it’s a different story when working with the classics, old or modern, and newer plays that are still under copyright (or plays being presented for the first time), which, as Melissa notes, are indeed separate cases.
In response to Frank’s question, I’d like to point out that this debate is not a new one. In his text WHAT IS DRAMATURGY? from 1995, Bert Cardullo writes, “a dramaturg is … the guardian of the text … as opposed to its ‘author,’ a stand in for the playwright. His job is to know (insofar as this is possible) as much as the playwright–about histoyr, society, culture, and politics, as well as drama–when he set about writing this or that play, and his goal is thus to ensure the theatrical transmission of the playwright’s vision….” (10).
This is a definition that some dramaturgs follow, but one against which many also react (and you, Frank, seem to be reacting against such implications, too). Andrew James Hartley aptly explains why he sees this definition as so problematic in his text THE SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMATURG (2005), quite simply: “such a position suggests a deeply problematic privileging of text over theatre, one which assumes that at its best the stage is a kind of conduit through which the text is presented” (3). Hartley spends the rest of his book giving examples of how the dramaturg can serve the production and the theatre, instead of the book–and his text has proved extremely valuable to me in my own work.
Like Hartley, I think broader, more encompassing definitions are more useful, because the dramaturg’s many jobs–editing scripts and helping playwrights, asking questions of everyone, assisting the director, attending rehearsals, writing program notes, leading pre- and post-show discussions, coordinating lobby exhibitions, even helping to discuss the goals of a season–go so far beyond the text, or even the individual production.
Perhaps dramaturgy and thaumaturgy are more related than might be apparent
at first. But that’s probably not the best way to market it to most students.

Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 12:51:34 -0400
Serving a text and investigating it/challenging it rigorously are not mutually exclusive. I think one most faithfully serves the text BY challenging it and investigating rigorously.
I also don’t understand the distinction between a play being new and being classic. Isn’t there always an ethical imperative to serve the play? And does that ethical imperative disappear just because a playwright is dead and gone and the copyright has expired? Artistic integrity is defined by copyright law?
The script is the blueprint for the event. Certainly there are ways classics can be expanded and burst open for a contemporary audience, but it seems to me that even that exercise is accomplished by serving the text and understanding what kind of event it’s a blueprint for.
And I think that both directors and dramaturgs play a role in this, directors perhaps more interpretively as the director is the author (if you will) of the live event itself.

Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 13:54:54 -0400
I don’t get squeamish (anymore) about the definition problem. Ask a lawyer to define what lawyers do. Or an artist what artists do. It’s not so easy to provide an exhaustive definition of many professions, even though we all believe we “know” what artists are and what lawyers do.
There are, it turns out, a host of inter-related interests and skill sets that dramaturgs use to work in a variety of institutional and non-institutional settings. I concede that makes it difficult to package as a class for undergraduates, but I’ve never seen the need for a “dramaturgy” class for undergraduates. I teach theory
We get a little fetishistic about the definition because a) it’s an unfamiliar and funny-sounding word and b) we tend to be folks who are persnickety about the definitions of lots of things and we tend to value precision in language and c) a lot of us would be uncomfortable with definitions that describe our own activities but leave others
hung out to dry. Which just means we’re nice people.

Dramaturgy Digest, Vol 16, Issue 14
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Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:34:57 -0400
I don’t know if it’s been mentioned yet, but the best quick-and-dirty definition I’ve ever heard and use in social settings is “the audience before the audience.” Everybody gets it, and it gives you a way to talk about things dramaturgs do that relate directly to thei experience as audience members.  By way of full disclosure, I believe the first time I heard the term  was from Geoff Proehl. It’s certainly not of my own invention.

Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 14:40:20 EDT
While I think a dramaturg should have a sense of how a play relates to a variety of varying contexts, I don’t see any obligation on the part of the dramaturg to try to “protect” the script or defend a presumed authorial intention. I see the job of the dramaturg to help make each iteration of a  script — and each interpretive process — part of a greater conversation,  perhaps of many greater conversations, about the play, theatre, our moment, etc.  The job of the dramaturg is, in a way, to complicate and enrich the experience of making a production for the benefit of the artists and the audience.

End of Dramaturgy Digest, Vol 16, Issue 15
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