Good question, and not a simple one to answer. Any one of several books can give you a history of the field, starting in Germany with Lessing and on through Brecht. The position of ‘dramaturg’ is entrenched into the National German theatre system and well-defined there – as the job spread across Europe and to the UK and the Americas, it shifted and changed. I won’t discuss here why or how that happened (again, there are several well-documented books already on the market – thank you, Amazon – or in your local college library). Instead, I would like to keep here a description of what, in my experience, dramaturgy IS.
Any dramaturg knows that the most common response to "I'm a dramaturg" is “So what do you do, exactly?” (Well, second-most-common, after a giggle about how ‘dramaturg’ sounds like ‘drama nerd’[1].) My short description is to tell people that dramaturgs deal with ‘research, context, and structure.’ Obviously this is still fairly vague; a colleague I met recently[2] responds simply by saying she is in ‘theatre production.’ There are, of course, very specific and concrete things that dramaturgs do – the field itself, though, is extraordinarily flexible and wide-ranging.
Dramaturgy, in its most general form, is the essential content of any theatrical piece (or even more loosely, any work that tells a story). It is the elements that make up that content (characters, events, crises, etc…) and the way those elements interact in order to communicate an intended message. Dramaturgy has to do with chosen words and visuals, with style and structure, with pacing and flow, and how they all work together. A ‘Dramaturg’, then, may be a person who is specifically concerned with these workings, a ‘theatre mechanic’[3], if you will.
There are much more elaborate definitions of a dramaturg, and they are usually keyed to the type of dramaturgical work that is being produced[4].
Traditional/Script-Based
This dramaturg usually works on pieces that are determined by a published script. There is normally an acknowledged hierarchy consisting of producer(s), director, members of a production team, and actors. In my experience work begins here with research into the script. After meeting with the director to determine the ‘angle’ (themes, most important elements the director would like communicated), the dramaturg begins to compile research on the script itself (play, musical, opera, etc.). This can range from author bio to sociological and historical events, from clothes and music to terms and slang phrases. Sometimes this information will create a reference book for the production, other times the dramaturg may condense and extrapolate information to build a smaller ‘actors’ packet’ to help the performers develop context for the characters they are exploring. The dramaturg may then attend rehearsal on occasion to answer questions (or collect them for further research). This research may also allow the dramaturg to act as a liaison between the production and the audience; they may write program notes that discuss a theme or idea of the play, they could produce a packet of educational resources to be used by schools in the area. The dramaturg may also serve as a facilitator in ‘talk back’ sessions with the audience and members of the production team before or after performances.
Devised Theatre
This is one of the newest and least-defined approaches to a dramaturg’s job. In devised theatre the performance company creates a piece of work without a pre-determined script, and in some extreme cases without a designated director or designers. In this type of situation you would also not see a dramaturg, as everyone involved would be equally concerned with the dramaturgy of the piece. When you do have a director, though, your production may also benefit from having an ‘outside eye’, or someone who can watch the overall progress of the piece without burrowing in to the intricacies of character development or blocking. In devising, the dramaturg may act as ‘documentarian’ – taking notes, capturing images and video, and carefully observing the mood and focus of the creation period. Then, in conference with the director, the dramaturg can develop a proposed structure for the piece and start to determine possible places for elements and moments that were discovered in rehearsal, and help shape ideas for further exploration. The devising dramaturg may also be very involved in research, as it serves the ongoing growth of the work.
New Writing
An area of great focus particularly in Canada and the United States, this dramaturg can serve as a playwriting mentor and editor. They may work with an author to develop a play before it is presented for consideration, and they may work with an author while a very new play is in rehearsals and still malleable. They may serve as playwright themselves, particularly in a devising situation where text is needed. A dramaturg may also work as an adaptor, creating work from an established poem or story or song, or as a translator when working with a script that originates in a different language.
Other Applications
A dramaturg may certainly also be a director, choreographer, technical designer, or performer. In a theatre company that keeps a dramaturg on staff they may be involved in season selection and in polling the community for interests and concerns. In some situations the dramaturg may be known instead as a Literary Manager, and be primarily focused on sorting proposed scripts (new or previously published) for potential production. (Sorry about that. The alliteration gets away from me sometimes.) There are dance dramaturgs (a very new field) and physical theatre dramaturgs (closely related to devising). Television and movies are also fields that could benefit from a dramaturg, both for research and for structuring.
Why a Dramaturg?
With arts funding growing ever scarcer and every dollar stretched, why would anyone pay for one more hard-to-define person on the team? The dramaturg’s job is to ask the questions no one else sees – and sometimes to ask the questions no one else wants to voice out loud. The dramaturg’s job is to open up communication between the actors and director, between the audience and the production, between the community and the theatre company. The dramaturg’s job is to document and to track the shifts and changes in a company, and in the audience’s response to theatrical offerings. The dramaturg’s job is to see possibilities, and help others to see them as well. A dramaturg’s job is to invite participants to discover.
It’s big, it’s vague, it’s scary, it’s exciting, and someone’s got to do it. [1] The aural joke is almost always perfectly appropriate. It’s probably harder to be a dramaturg and NOT be a true theatre geek.
[2] Gemma; MA Dramaturgy at University of Kent, 2011
[3] Dymphna Callery, ‘Dramaturgy: A User’s Guide’, Central School of Speech & Drama, 2005:28
[4] See the ‘Bookshelf’ page for works that produce the academic version of these definitions.
