by Jessica Ordon

I don’t spend much time thinking about the “Future of Dramaturgy.” At this point in my career, I spend more time thinking about concerns of the immediate future, like paying my rent, using my degree, not making an ass of myself in front of anyone important, what’s for lunch, did I pack anything to wear for the banquet, etc.

So this panel has been an opportunity for me to dream, and to revisit the reason why I chose to be a dramaturg, over anything else I could have done. I have a chance here to think beyond just strategies for earning my next paycheck.

So there are four basic tenets I wish to abide by to as a dramaturg, and they go as follows:

I. No more casebooks, protocols, production notebooks, actor packets, research binders, or other unwieldy stacks of paper.

II.  F*** Aristotle, and screw Freytag. OR, Re-evaluating the standards we use to teach and assess plays.

III. Do we exist with out language?

a.     I think we do

b.     I’m a performer, a participant, an artist, not just an observer, encyclopedia, or bearer of books and lexicons

IV. Make mo’ writers

I’ll explain each of those with a little more detail.

I. About casebooks, protocols, production notebooks, actor packets, research binders and other unwieldy stacks of paper:

a.     I’m sick of making them.

b.     I think research is great, but nothing feels worse than funneling your time and intellectual energy into creating resources that are of questionable use for actors or directors, or anyone else involved with the production.

c.      I know there are always exceptions, but I don’t believe the actor playing Hamlet is really interested in reading a Shakespeare biography, historical context, archival accounts and pictures of David Garrick’s performances, etc.

d.     What else can a dramaturg offer an actor or production team in terms of creative research?

• Something inspiring– images, artwork, poetry. (Someone once told me that it’s always good to know something besides just theatre, so that you have another source to bring in from outside of the rehearsal room. You have another reference point if you also know art history, or painting, or cooking, even.)
• Something tactile

1.     Bring Hamlet a Rubik’s cube.

2.     Give Ophelia a pot of soil, seeds, and a watering can.

3.     Play-doh for Claudius.

4.     A bubble-blowing wand and bubbles for Gert.

• Something physical, or metaphysical, that the actor can play with, or think about, NOT just a stack of paper (unless it comes with an origami guide.)

II.             F*** Aristotle and screw Freytag, too.

a.     Early in our theatre educations, we learn plot, character, thought, diction, music, spectacle, rising action, falling action denouement, etc.

b.     While these are useful models for Western playwriting, I think we can go beyond these models

c.      I feel most inspired by playwrights who throw some of these conventions away– Caryl Churchill, Suzan Lori-Parks

d.     Yet. As a script reader, I find myself reading plays against these old, old guidelines.

e.     As a dramaturg, am I going to limit a playwright based on correct placement of climax or appropriate falling action according to these old models?

f.      How can we think outside of these traditional modes about what makes a play? How can we define plays less narrowly, and be less limited in thinking about dramatic structure?

III.           Do we exist without language? (An existential question. But also a pragmatic question.)

a.     I think we do.

b.     There’s something out there besides just the singular writer and the script.

c.      Some of the most fulfilling processes I’ve ever been involved in have not necessarily started (or even ended) with a script.

• I worked on a site-based, multimedia movement piece at my university that started with no script.
• It was a great joy to figure out how to create a script for traveling piece
• And then later ask, do we actually need a script for a movement-based piece? Why? For whom? How can we do it better? Or not at all?

d.     I think there is absolutely room from dramaturgs in devised work, site-based work, actor-driven work

e.     We are active participants and not just observers. I don’t think we’re there to keep a clinical distance, or swoop in once a week to give our “impartial” view, or be cloistered with the playwright. We should be in the rehearsal room.

f.      And we shouldn’t be afraid to be hands-on and get messy.

IV. Make mo’ writers. (Of course, now that I’ve just talked about throwing away the script, I turn around and say I want more writers.)

a.     Writing workshops are a big thing right now. My theatre company, Native Voices, does mostly workshop productions. We place a lot of emphasis on the writer and on helping them develop their skills and grow, rather than just doctoring up their play for production.

b.     I also do some work for an organization in San Diego called Playwrights Project, that goes into classrooms and teaches kids to write plays, and I know that there are many other organizations all over the country that do a similar thing.

c.      Workshopping a play is not only a good opportunity to connect with and focus on the writer, it’s a chance for everyone in the room to learn from each other, including the director and actors

d.     Teaching people to write plays is enormous. Especially if we are teaching people from the community, people who don’t necessarily call themselves writers or think of theatre as their job.

e.     I love working with first-time playwrights, because, as I mentioned earlier, it’s a good idea to bring outside sources, unique life experiences, into the room. I think that whatever first-time playwrights write, it comes from someplace new

f.      I think we should spend more time with writers, and make new writers out of community members, in order to get more stories and more voices onstage. In turn, I think we’ll ultimately get more people into the audience, whether they come to support their co-worker who wrote the play, or to see something that speaks to their experience onstage. And of course, audiences that already come to the theatre will learn something new. 

And that’s what I’ve got!