You’ve probably never heard of a dramaturg before but they play an important part in production of a play.
In a paper pamphlet program of an Ohio University Division of Theater production, one can find a list of the cast and production staff, the setting of the play, and, if he or she flips to the end, a note from the dramaturg.
This term is likely foreign to the average audience member.
Dramaturgs serve many roles in the process of producing a play. They are the director’s third eye, the critic in the room, a representative for the playwright and a historian, said Matthew Cornish, assistant professor of theater history, who is in charge of the OU dramaturgy practicum.
Largely concerned with the overall structure of the performance, dramaturgs look at how the play moves and how the story unfolds and then focus on the particulars of the world within the play.
Dramaturgy has never been well known in America, Cornish said, largely because of the financial woes often faced by many theaters.
“Having an additional person who does the same things everyone else can be doing for themselves — but they’re doing it with a specialist or outsider’s eye — is expensive,” Cornish said. “Often, when theaters have budget crises, the dramaturg is the first to be let go or the last one hired.”
Cornish said he mostly uses playwrights in the practicum because they should be asking the same kinds of questions about their own work that dramaturgs do of any work.
“As a playwright, it really helps me develop and focus on consistency,” said Aaron Johnson, the dramaturg for Fall Semester’s bobrauschenbergamerica and a second-year graduate playwright,. “Every good playwright should ask ‘What’s important in this world, and what’s the meaning behind it?’ Why am I writing it?’”
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Though some might argue a dramaturg is an “additional” role, Cornish emphasizes how much time and energy they put into research for plays and how directors and others wouldn’t be able to truly fulfill their job and vision if they had this extra task.
For Marathon ’33, the current mainstage production, Allison “Adrian” Shelton spent more than a month researching the play’s focus — the dance marathons of the 1930s. She looked into the relationships between those involved in dance marathons as well as the history of the Great Depression, vaudeville and other concepts the play discusses.
“It takes you down this rabbit hole,” said Shelton, a junior studying playwriting. “I started out researching the New Deal and FDR, and then I was reading about Vietnamese politics.”
After researching, the dramaturg creates a sourcebook for the cast and crew to use as a reference tool. Alycia Kunkle, a third-year graduate actor, said she found dramaturgs’ work helpful in putting the play in context, especially when she was once given a timeline of important events that happened around the time of the play.
As of now, the dramaturgs at OU are essentially only involved in the pre-production process of the play as well as the first week of rehearsals in which table work is done. Cornish plans to expand the dramaturgy practicum in many ways.
He said he wants to get the dramaturgs involved with the directors before the first design meetings — a desire echoed by Johnson.
“Production meetings (are) where a lot of the spirit of the show lies,” Johnson said. “When you get to table work, a lot of (the production components) are set in stone, and there’s no opportunity to interact. … The more involved, the better. … The more we know, the more we can help them.”
In the long term, Cornish said he is also planning to institute more educational outreach with the dramaturgs by organizing packets for schoolchildren, leading talkbacks after the show or gathering experts for a discussion about the play’s themes and issues.
Talkbacks have already been included with this year’s productions. Only one was held for Marathon ’33, but it was the moment Shelton, who lights up when she talks about her work as a dramaturg, said truly showed her the importance of the career she wishes to pursue.
“It was a very personal experience for me that showed these people care about the work dramaturgs do,” she said. “If I can help them understand something they didn’t understand before, that’s a success to me, and I think we accomplished that.”
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