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.

It is similarly a false myth that a dramaturg is somewhat an elusive profession, difficult to define, and even more difficult to pin down. Is s/he a director, an assistant director, a stage manager, or a playwright? The answer is simple. S/he is, and should be, none of the above. A dramaturg’s task is to offer another perspective to the theatre production process, and his/her role will depend on the type or style of project, or a stage in the project. It may include the skills of a researcher, an editor, an audience’s eye in the rehearsal room, working through and with a director, not necessarily agreeing with them all the time, and always observing, questioning and recording. A good dramaturg is invaluable to a director at any stage of theatre production process, and will represent the playwright’s interests in the rehearsal room. An example of such a fruitful union of creative minds is Suzanne Bell’s involvement as a dramaturg on producing The Kindness of Strangers, written by Tony Green and directed by Gemma Bodinetz, at Liverpool Everyman in October 2004.

John Keefe’s recent paper on dramaturgy presented at the Theatre Group meeting of the Directors’ Guild of Great Britain on 27 September 2002, and Katalin Trencsényi’s subsequent response to it should put suspicious minds to rest. Trencsényi correctly points out that at the time of ever-decreasing rehearsal periods it would be not only more cost effective to include a dramaturg’s fee in the budget of a performance, rather than extend rehearsal time and pay extra weeks’ salary and rehearsal space for the entire company, but also more beneficial for everyone concerned.

In the past, I had directors complaining to me how overwhelmed they were by rehearsals, and how stressful rehearsals can be. When asked whether they would consider using a dramaturg, they despaired about how they could afford another person in the rehearsal room.

I see this problem as historical rather than budgetary. Of course, there are obvious dangers, as employing an alleged expert would reflect badly upon the field itself and make even the most willing director forsake the idea of ever using dramaturgs. Therefore, there is a need to establish efficient training programmes to ensure that individuals working in dramaturg’s profession receive appropriate training.

Queen Margaret University College’s School of Drama and Creative Industries in Edinburgh have successfully trained dramaturgs since 1999, within the Literary Management specialism. The specialism was founded as a response to a growing need of new writing theatres such as Edinburgh’s Traverse to establish strong literary management departments. Latterly, when I was appointed as specialist tutor, the specialism developed further to include a full hands-on training of production and audience dramaturgs, while still teaching the literary management strand.

The School’s B.A. Hons course in Drama and Theatre Arts is a potent ground for training theatre practitioners in general, and dramaturgs in particular. In the first two years of DTA studies, the students gain comprehensive knowledge in different areas of occidental theatre history, theory and practice. By the end of the second year, they have opportunity to choose further training in several competitive fields: playwriting, directing, dramaturgy, community theatre, arts journalism, contemporary performance practice and producing.  In the final two years of their studies, they will pursue in-depth study of their specialism, constituting sixty percent of their overall learning.

In their first year of dramaturgy specialism, the students are introduced to historical and practical approaches to dramaturgy, and acquire basic skills such as different methodologies of dramaturgical research in and for theatre, writing textual analyses, writing programme notes, information and educational packs, organising and hosting post-show productions, forums and workshops, budgeting, script-editing, adapting non-dramatic work for stage, interaction and other skills necessary for them to work in theatre industry.  At this stage, specialism requires 60% class-based and 40% task-based learning. In their first semester they participate in the project called ‘PlayAct’, in which fourth year student playwrights work for two weeks with the third year directors, dramaturgs and the second year acting students on developing their original idea into a script. The culmination of this process is a sharing session which may include an enactment of a scene or a presentation of the rehearsal process. The aim of this project is for the students to learn how to work across specialisms, and in the case of dramaturgs, it is the first time that they will apply in practice the knowledge that they have acquired until that point. For many, this is the time when they will fall in love with dramaturgy as a profession, some find it a gruelling task, especially if they have to collaborate with playwrights and/or directors who have not been properly briefed on what the dramaturg’s role is and could be in a creative process. ‘PlayAct’s finish coincides with the end of the first semester of their third year, and it is a preparation for the spring semester, which brings a shift in their learning. >From then onwards, class-based work constitutes approximately 40% of their overall time, with the remaining time being spent working on various practical projects.

In the fourth year, students undertake a two-week placement within a professional theatre company. Many students choose to do their placements at the end of the third year, or during summer, between two years, trading in on ample opportunities offered by Edinburgh Fringe. Theatre companies that usually offer placements to QMUC student dramaturgs include Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, It’s All Right For Some Productions in London, and, most recently, Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh. Once back from their placements, task-based work will take approximately 70% of the students’ time.  Their class-based learning also takes another direction; while the first year of their specialism focused on their learning of essential skills to work as dramaturgs and literary managers in theatre, now they are introduced to the skills required to work as dramaturgs, researchers and script editors in film, television and radio. They are further encouraged, in a one-off assessment at the end of the first semester, to experiment with another specialist area, in order to gain deeper understanding of how other theatre professions work. Some students choose to work on a project as actors or directors; the others prefer to write a playscript or to compose a musical score for a theatre piece.  In both years assessment is by portfolio. These portfolios represent a variety of practical and theoretical work that they have undertaken throughout their specialist education.

The specialism is not devoid of problems. There is a serious resource issue, as specialism budgets, or the lack of them, depend on current trials and tribulations of HE funding. Furthermore, the dramaturgy as profession is still regarded with suspicion by some Scottish theatre companies, which often results in the students’ need to search for placements further afield. Though this may prove costly, it is not necessarily a bad thing, since they can later use their different experiences to enrich the theatre tradition within which they will be working.

Though some of the School’s graduates have been employed by various theatre companies on a full-time or project basis, such as Neil Coull who now works as Literary Manager at Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, or Michael Blythe who is a resident dramaturg in the Edinburgh-based Cat in a Cup Theatre Company, and some have chosen to go abroad to continue postgraduate courses in dramaturgy as Rachael Rayment who is currently doing her M.A. degree in dramaturgy at Harvard University, not all of them end up working in the profession. In either case, multiple skills provided by the training are valued by employers in various cultural or commercial fields. These young people are self-starting resourceful researchers and practitioners with a keen eye for detail, and a good sense of diplomacy.  It will be interesting to see if the newly founded Scottish National Theatre come to see the School’s training programme as something that they can use as a tool for enriching theatre production in Scotland, and these young practising dramaturgs as someone whose creativity and cutting edge vision may help change the face of contemporary Scottish theatre.

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