Drama-lama.... what?!

You know what, readers?  I for one am at a loss on how to describe the role of a dramaturg in making new plays.  Heck, I'm not really sure how you spell it! (Spell check programs will direct you to use dramaturge, but most folks I know leave off the silent e.)

All I can really tell you is... they are SO important.  They are the advocate for the playwright, the one who gets inside the brain of the playwright to help them explore a play, like it was a mine... looking for the vein of gold.

See? That's not a good analogy.  But let me offer you this incredibly articulate description of the role of the dramaturg provided by one of our most talented and thoughtful dramaturgs, Jenn Book.

Take it away, Jenn!

-----------------------------------------------

My Grandma Lois always told me I should be a diplomat. “You have a way of making people understand each other,” she said. So, I grew up to be a diplomat. A kind of diplomat, anyway. I’m a dramaturg.

My friends and acquaintances have come up with a lot of different words that help them understand what I do. One of my students called me “our play’s hard drive.” A colleague of my husband’s offered “theatre consultant.” The dramaturg’s specific job depends on the show s/he’s working on, and the needs of the writer, director, and/or company. I’ve done background research for a show, compiled packets of information to help actors and directors with the world of the play, written study guides for audiences, created lobby displays to bring the audience into the world of the play, been the “third eye” in rehearsal, and provided commentary to writers and directors while their pieces of art were evolving.

Whew! But through it all, I maintain my role as “diplomat.” When working in a collaborative environment—as theatre so often is—I find that it’s rarely useful to just give my opinions, even if they are requested. I prefer to ask questions. So instead of “I don’t like when your character says…” I’ll ask why a character makes a specific choice.

Since I shy away from giving negative opinions as a matter of course, this has led some of my friends to call me a “Pollyanna,” or ask “Geez, Jenn, do you like everything?” Well, of course I don’t like everything! But consider the responses one might get from a playwright who asks “What did you think of my script?” and gets the answer, “I didn’t like Act 2.” “Well, what didn’t you like about it?” “I don’t know…I just didn’t like it.”

Now consider the following: “What did you think of my script?” “I loved the characters, but I’m wondering why you decided to put scene three where it is. Would we understand Character 1’s motivation better if we see what happens in scene four first?” This spawns conversation, rather than confusion and potential resentment.


I was thrilled when this approach to dramaturgical conversation was discussed and promoted in our workshop with Michael Bigelow Dixon. I actually teared up when we came to the conclusion that positive questioning and conversation was the appropriate route to dramaturgy.

I had the fortune to put this into practice for the InkReading series this fall. Early last month, I received a script in my email Inbox. It was Jason Gray Platt’s Strive/Seek/Find. The initial read intrigued me; the second read got me invested. Every few pages, my impression of the play and its characters changed.


“Oh, it’s about the family Odysseus left behind…”

“Oh, it’s told in a contemporary way. How cool! Telemachus is on his school’s swim team, and is dating a girl from his class…”

 “Oh, it’s about power! And Telemachus is watching men come in and out of Penelope’s bedroom…”

And [beware of spoilers!] “Oh, Telemachus has raped a girl and killed a man. Is he finally in a position to claim his birthright?...”

I was hooked.

Our first rehearsal involved Jason, Supervising Dramaturge Anne McCaw and Artistic Director Jessi Burgess, Chris Gallu — the reading’s director — a couple of the actors, and me. We talked about what Jason wanted to get out of the process before jumping into reading. Since the script has been through a couple of readings and revisions, Jason was in a position of refining characters and situations. He did not foresee any major changes. He mostly wanted to look at the female characters (a great choice), and at a couple of scenes, including one he wanted to cut. It wasn’t working, and he knew why, but he wasn’t quite sure how he wanted to fix it.

My script from the four days of rehearsal is covered in scribbles from the thoughts I had while hearing the actors read. While I’m reading a script the first time, I keep a notebook with my questions in it. For me, the margins of a script are for impressions during rehearsal. My margins are covered with cryptic scribblings like:

“Does T know S since S knew O?” (read: Does Telemachus already know the Suitor to whom he’s speaking, since the Suitor knew Odysseus?),

“TRANSITION!!” (read: The transition time between scenes might be too quick for the actors to change costumes in a fully staged production), and

“C knows T knows parallel” (read: Calliope knows her mom is dead, even though others say different; Telemachus knows his dad is alive even though others say different).

These are thoughts that come to me when I hear the scenes read aloud—ideas pop up when you can hear the dialogue rather than imagining it. For example, in my head, I can picture different voices for Penelope’s Suitors. When faced with the reality of one actor playing all of the Suitors, a very different reality presents itself—it is, of course, the actor’s and director’s choice how to differentiate the characters vocally and physically. But the writer can certainly help things a good deal by providing the characters with different word choices, syntax, and so on. It also becomes more apparent when characters change from scene to scene when one actor reads those roles.

After the actors read their scenes, they worked through character and action with Chris. I did most of my talking during breaks or right after rehearsal, but there were certainly times I jumped into the conversation if I was particularly excited about a topic. This mostly happened when we were discussing the female characters, Penelope and Calliope. I loved those two characters, and it’s so interesting to work on female characters that were written by men. We discussed Calliope a lot; her relationship with the royal family was very interesting, and we wanted to explore those relationships. Our major question was “Why did Calliope come into the picture in the first place, and why did she stay?”

I saw some great development in the female characters during our four days of rehearsal, and Jason found it helpful to hear changes out loud. It was also very interesting to see relationships formed through watching the actors interact on stage, both during rehearsals and in the reading itself. We also benefitted from the audience talk-back after the reading.

One of the most interesting moments to me was when Jason came to rehearsal with a monologue that replaced an entire scene. The actor playing Telemachus read the monologue through a couple of times, and at the end of rehearsal, Chris, Jason and I caucused. We agreed that the monologue was cool, but didn’t really fit in this play. Jason came away from the conversation with several ideas of what to do for his next draft, understanding that with the time constraints of a four-day rehearsal process, he wouldn’t be able to bring something new to this particular setting.

The InkReading process was exciting: I got to work with a team I hadn’t worked with before, and help develop a play that is truly meaty. It’s always intriguing to see how different people work together, and what works best for one playwright may not necessarily work for another. I would definitely do it again!

An interesting (to me) post-script: some of our most fruitful dramaturgical conversations came on the Red Line after rehearsals! Jason and I got to know each other through conversations about our lives, as well as conversations about the play, and personal conversations inevitably turned into conversations about the script. A comment about media coverage of things going on in DC became a discussion about the media presence in Strive/Seek/Find; a question about marriage easily segued into a conversation about Penelope’s relationship with Odysseus before he went off to war…

That's the lovely and thoughtful Jenn Book above, front and center and in green, at The Inkwell's master class on the Art of New Play Dramaturgy, taught by Michael Bigelow Dixon, who stands in the background.