ABSTRACT
Dramaturgy, in its many forms, is a fundamental and indispensable element of contemporary theatre. In its earliest definition, the word itself means a comprehensive theory of "play making." Although it initially grew out of theatre, contemporary dramaturgy has made enormous advances in recent years, and it now permeates all kinds of narrative forms and structures: from opera to performance art; from dance and multimedia to filmmaking and robotics.
In our global, mediated context of multinational group collaborations that dissolve traditional divisions of roles as well as unbend previously intransigent rules of time and space, the dramaturg is also the ultimate globalist: intercultural mediator, information and research manager, media content analyst, interdisciplinary negotiator, social media strategist.
This collection focuses on contemporary dramaturgical practice, bringing together contributions not only from academics but also from prominent working dramaturgs. The inclusion of both means a strong level of engagement with current issues in dramaturgy, from the impact of social media to the ongoing centrality of interdisciplinary and intermedial processes.
The contributions survey the field through eight main lenses:
- world dramaturgy and global perspective
- dramaturgy as function, verb and skill
- dramaturgical leadership and season planning
- production dramaturgy in translation
- adaptation and new play development
- interdisciplinary dramaturgy
- play analysis in postdramatic and new media dramaturgy
- social media and audience outreach.
Magda Romanska is Visiting Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, Associate Professor of Theatre and Dramaturgy at Emerson College, and Dramaturg for Boston Lyric Opera. Her books include The Post-Traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and Kantor (2012), Boguslaw Schaeffer: An Anthology (2012), and Comedy: An Anthology of Theory and Criticism (2014).
Introduction
Magda Romanska
Part I World dramaturgy in the twenty-first century
1 Robert Blacker looks at the past and future of American dramaturgy
Jacob Gallagher-Ross and Robert Blacker
2 Contemporary new play dramaturgy in Canada
Brian Quirt
3 Collaborative dramaturgy in Latin American theater
Margarita Espada
4 Documentary dramaturgy in Brazil
Julie Ann Ward
5 The place of a dramaturg in twenty-first century England
Duška Radosavljević
6 On German Dramaturgy
Bernd Stegemann
Translated by Johannes Stier
7 The making of La Dramaturgie in France
Kate Bredeson
8 Dramaturgy and the role of the dramaturg in Poland
Agata Dąbek
Translated by Michael Leonard Kersey Morris
9 The new play dramaturgy in Russia
Pavel Rudnev
Translated by Jessica Hinds-Bond
10 Dramaturgy in post-revolution Iran: problems and prospects
Marjan Moosavi
11 Performing dramaturgy in Syria: observations and interview with Mayson Ali
Fadi Fayad Skeiker
12 Official and unofficial dramaturgs: dramaturgy in China
William Huizhu Sun
13 Dramaturgy of Separated Elements in the Experimental Japanese Theatre
Eiichiro Hirata
14 Dramaturgy in Indian theatre: a closer view
Ketaki Datta
15 Dramaturgy in Australia and the case of Avast and Doku Rai
Peter Alexander Eckersall
16 Dramaturgies in/of South Africa
Marié-Heleen Coetzee and Alan Munro
Part II Dramaturgy in the age of globalization
17 The dramaturg as globalist
Tom Sellar
18 Freelance dramaturgs in the twenty-first century: journalists, advocates, and curators
Anne Hamilton
19 The National Theatre goes international: global branding and the regions
Jens Peters
20 From alienation to identity: transnational communication of Russian-Israeli theatre
Miriam Yahil-Wax
21 Intercultural dramaturgy: dramaturg as cultural liaison
Walter Byongsok Chon
22 The dramaturgical bridge: contextualizing foreignness in multilingual theatre
Debra Caplan
23 Reading and (re)directing "racial scripts" on and beyond the stage
Faedra Chatard Carpenter
24 Transcultural dramaturgy methods
Judith Rudakoff
25 The dramaturgical process and global understanding
Robyn Quick
26 European dramaturgy in the twenty-first century
Marianne Van Kerkhoven
Part III Dramaturgy in motion: demolitions, definitions, and demarcations
27 Dramaturgy on shifting grounds
Hans-Thies Lehmann and Patrick Primavesi
28 Dramaturgy as skill, function, and verb
Lawrence Switzky
29 Interactual dramaturgy: intention and affect in interdisciplinary performance
Bruce Barton
30 The expansion of the role of the dramaturg in contemporary collaborative performance
Sarah Sigal
31 Who is the dramaturg in devised theatre?
Teresa Stankiewicz
32 Finding our hyphenates: a new era for dramaturgs
Jessica Applebaum
33 Dramaturgy as a way of looking into the spectator’s aesthetic experience
Milan Zvada
34 Dramaturgy as training: a collaborative model at Shakespeare’s Globe
Amy Kenny
35 The art of collaboration: on dramaturgy and directing
Anne Bogart and Jackson Gay
36 Dramaturgy in action{...}even if it’s not as a dramaturg
Thomas A. Oldham
Part IV Dramaturgs as artistic leaders and visionaries: privileges and responsibilities of the office
37 Dramaturgs as artistic leaders
Gideon Lester
38 Dramaturgical leadership and the politics of appeal in commercial theatre
Ken Cerniglia
39 On dramaturgy and leadership
Vicki Stroich
40 Leadeship advice to a dramaturgy student
Anne Cattaneo
41 Season planning: challenges and opportunities
Edward Sobel
42 The dramaturg’s role in diversity and audience development
Julie Felise Dubiner
43 Guthrie Theater’s debt to women and diversity
Marianne Combs
44 Reimagining the literary office: designing a department that fulfills your purpose
Janine Sobeck
45 The National New Play Network Collaborative Literary Office: new tools for old tricks
Jason Loewith and Gwydion Suilebhan
Part V Dramaturg as context manager: transculturalism, translation, adaptation, and contextualization
46 A view from the bridge: the dramaturg’s role when working on a play in translation
Katalin Trencsényi
47 Lost in translation
Gitta Honegger
48 The dissemination of theatrical translation
Adam Versényi
49 Literary adaptation for the stage: a primer for adaptation dramaturgs
Jane Barnette
50 Intermingling literary and theatrical conventions
Tomasz Wiśniewski
51 Research strategies in dramaturgical practice
Matt DiCintio
52 Dramaturg as context manager: a phenomenological and political practice
Graça Corrêa
53 New play explorations in the twenty-first century
Mark Bly
54 Thinking like an actor: a guide for the production dramaturg
Andrew Ian Carlson
55 The youth respondent method: new work development for Theatre for Young Audiences
Kristin Leahey
Part VI Dramaturgy among other arts: interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and transvergence
56 Complex in-betweeness of dramaturgy and performance studies
Marin Blažević
57 The dramaturg(ies) of puppetry and visual theatre
Dassia N. Posner
58 A method for musical theatre dramaturgy
Brian D. Valencia
59 Borderless dramaturgy in dance theatre
Vessela S. Warner
60 The role of the dramaturg in the creation of new opera works
Andrew Eggert
61 Dramaturgy and film
Gerry Potter
62 Phronesis for robots: (re)covering dramaturgy as an Interdiscipline
Michael Chemers
63 Dramaturgical design of the narrative in digital games
Klaus P. Jantke
64 New media dramaturgy
Peter Eckersall, Helena Grehan, and Edward Scheer
65 The science of dramaturgy and the dramaturgy of science
Jules Odendahl-James
Part VII Dramaturg as systems analyst: dramaturgy of postdramatic structures
66 Postdramatic dramaturgy
Gad Kaynar
67 Teaching deconstructively
Barbara Johnson
68 EF’s visit to a small planet: some questions to ask a play
Elinor Fuchs
69 Dramaturging non-realism: creating a new vocabulary
Tori Haring-Smith
70 On dramaturgy in contemporary dance and choreography
Sandra Noeth
71 Research, counter-text, performance: reconsidering the (textual) authority of the dramaturg
D. J. Hopkins
72 The bead diagram: a protean tool for script analysis
Shelley Orr
73 Methods for a new dramaturgy of digital performance
Jodie McNeilly
74 Drametrics: what dramaturgs should learn from mathematicians
Magda Romanska
75 Parallel-text analysis and practical dramaturgies
Toby Malone
Part VIII Dramaturg as public relations manager: immersions, talkbacks, lobby displays, and social networks
76 Dramaturgy and the immersive theatre experience
Catherine Bouko
77 Barrack-dramaturgy and the captive audience
András Visky
78 Framing the theatrical experience: lobby displays
Miriam Weisfeld
79 Dramaturg as public relations manager
Katie Rasor
80 Talkbacks: asking good discussion questions
Jodi Kanter
81 Talkbacks for "sensitive subject matter" productions: the theory and practice
Martine Kei Green-Rogers
82 Dramaturgies for the digital age
Ilinca Todoruț
83 Digital engagement: strategies for online dramaturgy
Tanya Dean
84 Digital dramaturgy and digital dramaturgs
LaRonika Thomas
85 Can technology save theatre? Tweet Seats, YouTube auditions, and Facebook backstage?
Randi Zuckerberg
