A DRAMA-WHAT??
Good evening my dear bloggers!
I have found this module very stimulating as well as challenging. I had no idea what the role of a dramaturge was or even how to spell it, but after working in a fantastic group and pulling together as a group to perform an adoption of Büchner’s ‘Leonce and Lena’ i am begining to understand. Here i will discuss with you my understanding of a Dramaturge.
‘Bringing certain approaches together and creating a shell or exhibition, you have to think carefully how you present a show, what kind of environment you create and to think about the profile of your program. This is very much an artistic decision as well as a political one.’ – Frank
Thomas Fank clearly states that the role of a Dramaturge is a creative one, focusing on different things such as a administrative artwork, fundraising events, and organiser of the theatre and the company’s who work within it. However he also suggests that a Dramaturge has to understand politics of today’s society. We decided to make ‘Leonce and Lena’ contemporary, but to do this we had to understand what would happen in Las Vegas with an arranged marriage. If this was a Shakespearean play or our play was set in the 1920s or even 1960s, the characters Leonce and Lena would have found it a lot harder to escape their families. In today’s society it is very easy for anyone over the age of 16 to jump in a taxi and drive into the middle of nowhere; people have more freedom than they did when this play was set. It is the sort of historical policies and human rights that a Dramaturge would have to research.
It is also the role of a Dramaturge to write press releases about the performance they are working with, prepare and produce pre-and post-performance presentations on educational material which would be situated around the performance and most importantly they would communicate with the press; organising the company’s debut, dates for productions and reports with reviews on the performance. a Dramaturge has to understand the ability of a new play and the structure of the successful ability within a new script. Radosavljević created an understanding of working with new plays and new writers, she created an easy to understand ‘table of risks’.
A – New writing, work by obscure playwrights, outside mainstream plays.
B – ‘Serious drama’ this includes Ibsen, Chekhov and Shakespeare’s tragedies and histories
C – ‘Mainstream’ this means general plays people know and enjoy such as ‘a streetcar named desire’, ‘the Crucible’ and ‘waiting for Godot’. This could also mean productions starring celebrities or well-known people such as Tara Fitzgerald, Neil Patrick Harris, David Tennant or Denise van Outen!
D – Desirable work, this is a performance that would pull in a large amount of interest from the audience. Such as Ayckbourn’s plays, Shakespeare or well-known plays.
E – Family shows, these are generally pantomimes, children’s story shows or musicals
Once a Dramaturge has researched the new production and understands the history and political contexts they are able to place it in this grid. Once it has placed within the grid, it is easier for them to start marketing their new production.
After much research to conclude, a Dramaturge is a jack of all trades within a theatre company. They are employed by the theatre and work with companies to produce a performance which will entice the audience but will also make back the money spent.