Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy

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).

List of contents

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
Duska Radosavljevic

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 Dabek
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 Wisniewski

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 Blazevic

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 Todoru

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

About the author

Magda Romanska

Report

"Romanska has put together a robust, impressively comprehensive volume that covers the ever-broadening scope of contemporary dramaturgy within a global context... this volume reveals the established, emerging, and imagined ideas of what dramaturgy is and could be... [it] is destined to become a go-to reference for practitioners and students of dramaturgy, along with directors, critics, playwrights, and theater scholars. Highly recommended."
- Choice
"It is not overstating the case to say that this volume will for sure be the book of reference for students, scholars, and dramaturgs in the fields named above if it comes to questions of dramaturgy. The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy goes far beyond a conventional handbook on dramaturgy as a way to structure a text to be staged. Rather, it claims attention to and evokes interest for the variety of a concept and a profession that not only covers crucial aspects of the field, but also implicitly highlights the richesse of dramaturgy as a field of study and therefore advocates theatre, performance and media studies as important disciplines that have a long history whose end is not in sight."
- Journal of Contemporary Drama in English
"A wide range of working methods in postdramatic theatre outlined in clear terms."
- Theatralia
"A timely gift to the world of contemporary theatre."
- American Theatre
"A singular, vital, and necessary contribution to the field."
- Platform: Postgraduate Journal of Theatre Arts

"An indispensable resource for anyone serious about dramaturgy."
- Contemporary Theatre Review
"The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy will prove highly useful in theatre and performance practice, education, and scholarship."
- Theatre Survey 
"Offers an impressive range of voices and insights into dramaturgical practice."
- Theatre Research International 
 

Product details

• Authors: Magda Romanska
• Assisted by: Magda Romanska (Editor), Romanska Magda (Editor)
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 22.07.2015
• EAN: 9781138946330
• ISBN: 978-1-138-94633-0
• No. of pages: 568
• Series: Routledge Companions
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; PERFORMING ARTS / Theater / General, ART / Performance, Theatre Studies, Performance Art