Structures in devising
STRUCTURES IN DEVISING
by Frauke Franz and Synne Behrndt
On the 18th October 2003 the Dramaturgs’ Network held a Debate Forum on devised theatre dramaturgy at the BAC. The initial aims of the forum were to open up a debate about the need for a critical language (exemplified by dramaturgy) in making and evaluating devised performance in order to create stronger performance outcomes, and to discuss ways of working and approaches to collaboration and devising.
It was an open Forum exploring ways of working within devising framed by presentations of and discussion about collaborations between dramaturgs and directors. The real success and achievement of the (sold out!) event was that it created a platform for practitioners and audiences to discuss processes and practice.
Posted by Hanna at 04:09 PM in Articles | Comments (0) |
Dramaturgy in Scotland
Dramaturgy in Scotland:
A Peculiar Case of
Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh
by Dr Ksenija Horvat, Specialist Tutor in Dramaturgy,
QMUC, Edinburgh
A year ago a fourth year dramaturgy student at QMUC contacted a well-known Scottish arts journalist asking him to comment on the position of dramaturgs in Scotland. The latter was reluctant to give any comment other than that one should not impose upon Scottish theatre what had not grown organically from it. I am reluctant to agree with this point.
To say that dramaturgy as a profession is alien to Scottish theatre is a misconception. A number of talented dramaturgs have worked in Scottish theatre in the past (albeit under different titles), such as Ella Wildridge who has worked extensively with different theatres including Royal Lyceum Theatre and Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh and Cottesloe Theatre in London.
Posted by Hanna at 04:05 PM in Articles | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |
Playgrounding A New Writing Scheme by the Polka Theatre
Playgrounding
A New Writing Scheme by the Polka Theatre
By Frauke Franz, dramaturg
New writing is one of the core areas at the heart of the Polka Theatre’s artistic policy. Playgrounding is their year-long scheme to develop new plays by new writers or writers new to children’s theatre. I was appointed as the dramaturg and project co-ordinator at the beginning of the scheme in 2003.
It is my first job in children’s theatre since coming from the background of a dramaturgy education in Germany and having worked mainly with devising theatre companies in England. What attracted me to the job was the very open and refreshing approach to developing new writing by the then new Artistic Director, Annie Wood and the Associate Director of New Writing, Richard Shannon.
Our common vision was to open the theatre to new ways of working, a place to experiment. We wanted to give the writers a chance to experience the theatrical process during the writing process, to embrace physicality and visual images.
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Building a Rough House
Building a Rough House
Nightswimming’s creation process
By Brian Quirt, Artistic Director of Nightswimming
Nightswimming is a Toronto-based dramaturgical company that commissions and develops new works of theatre and dance, but does not produce those works. All of our resources go toward the creation of the best possible development process for each project, and to the exploration and improvement of dramaturgical process in general.
[Editors note: Please see the article and transcript of the discussion “New Writing; how do we develop new plays?” in the winter issue of the network newsletter for a full description of Nightswimming.]
Posted by Hanna at 03:57 PM in Articles | Comments (0) |
o, dramaturgy!
o, dramaturgy!
by Phil Smith, playwright
Be careful when you open your mouth between rehearsals - you may end up writing articles on the end of your rhetoric. Suspect all motives, all opinions.
Expressing such things can be fatal to your economics – you never know who’s listening and people can go off you. It’s not personal. It’s business. But this is about craft. An anachronism, I know.
What follows is an ill-advised gloss on a few premeditated comments about being a dramaturg, which occasionally I am – more an activity than an identity.
Posted by Hanna at 03:54 PM in Articles | Comments (0) |
Who’s afraid of … the dramaturg?
Who’s afraid of … the dramaturg?
Some thoughts after five years as a freelance dramaturg
By Katalin Trencsényi, dramaturg
It has been five years since I received my degree (MA) in Dramaturgy at the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest. When the Dean of the School presented me with my diploma in the packed theatre of the university, he shook my hand and said: “Welcome, back!” What he meant was that I had literally just returned from my two-years’ theatre traineeship in Britain.
After the ceremony, myself and my dramaturgy class (there were eight of us) had our picture taken on a cart in the school yard (to be framed and hung on the school’s wall of fame) before we all dispersed to start our professional career. Sitting cheerfully on “Thespis’ cart” as we called that decrepit old prop that summer afternoon, little did I know that cart had a symbolic meaning for my future: further travelling between Budapest and London, until a year later I’d move to Britain and continue my career there as a dramaturg.
Five years have passed since then, all spent working in my profession (one year in Hungary and four in Britain) – enough time to look back and summarise my experience as a freelance dramaturg before moving to the next chapter of my career.
Posted by Hanna at 03:49 PM in Articles | Comments (0) |
Two forms of collaboration and complicity in total theatre and playing Beckett
Two forms of collaboration and complicity in total theatre and playing Beckett; a dramaturgs view.
by John Keefe
Introduction All theatre is a collaboration: between the actors, and between the actors and non-acting contributors; together these make a ‘mise-en-scène’ with which the spectator collaborates. All theatre is a complicity or a pact of knowing acceptance: between the actors who accept the fiction and figures they present as ‘real’ and behave as if these are ‘real’; between the real fictional world created (the ‘mise-en-scène’) and the spectator who accepts that fiction as a real representative of their world whilst knowing it is a fiction. The spectator is always reading the ‘mise-en-scène’ to a lesser or greater degree but I do not accept they are always constructing an image; rather it is a question of how complete is the image presented. The more complete the image the less work the spectator has to do; at its worst a form of infantilising the spectator.
I wish to examine and contrast two particular forms of collaboration-complicity; between that demanded by the unsustainable ideology of the ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ with its attempt to construct and give a complete image which subsumes the spectator (as an ideal), and that of Beckett’s ‘mise-en-scène’ which rests on his performance dramaturgy that both shows us the world of the play yet keeps us slightly detached from that world as we laugh and cry at what we recognize in ourselves. Where we do have to play our part in the play, in constructing our image and experience of the human condition from the images presented to and confronting us.
Posted by Hanna at 03:44 PM in Articles | Comments (0) |
On Getting People to Engage A few thoughts on festival dramaturgy
On Getting People to Engage A few thoughts on festival dramaturgy
by Martine Dennewald, dramaturg
“We have to find a way to continue talking […]. We have to engage. […] That’s all theater is: who’s in the room, whom you can interest in being in the room. And then extending the discussion.” (Peter Sellars)
Six months ago, I left the United Kingdom to go to Hungary, where I was asked to curate and coordinate an international Visitors Programme for the Contemporary Drama Festival Budapest. The aim of this series of private events was “to offer a number of international guests the possibility to experience cultural life in Budapest from an insider’s point of view […]” (Kortárs Drámafesztivál 2005a). Forty visitors – theatre and festival directors, dramaturgs, critics and academics – were invited to take part in an exceptional cultural programme. Over the week-long festival period, they were introduced to the different arts in Hungary by some of the most outstanding experts in each field, and they had the opportunity to meet a considerable number of Hungarian artists in person. The intention was to lay “the foundation for future co-operations off the beaten tracks of mainstream cultural exchange” (Kortárs Drámafesztivál 2005b).
Posted by Hanna at 03:37 PM in Articles | Comments (0) |
