CMU School of Drama


Saturday, March 26, 2011

John Wells sits down with Dramaturgy Students

The Ghost Light Dramaturgy Collective: "John Wells, perhaps the most famous and successful alum of Carnegie Mellon, has for the past five years been a staunch supporter of our fledgling dramaturgy program. He sat down with our majors on a visit Thursday, before a ceremony celebrating his transformational gift to the School.

2 comments:

Daniel L said...

I didn't know how substantial John Wells seems to be, but I did enjoy seeing him answer questions in the Chosky on Friday and it did seem that he is intimately familiar with all aspects of production.

As for mentioning dramaturgs in film and television, I'd be interested to learn more about that; dramaturgy was introduced to me relatively recently, and so I wonder if film/TV dramaturgy follows the same model.

emilyannegibson said...

I always think these little blurbs Doc posts are kind of bizzare, but then I remember that they aren't necessarily for the dramaturgs who were there, but everyone else.

As to Daniel's comment, the form isn't the same. The tasks often are, but I think the biggest difference in film is that instead of one dramaturg who (say it's a new work) considers structure, plot, development, historical context, cultural appropriation, details, and production work, film has different people for each of those tasks. Well, not each of them, but you get my point. There's a position for working on the script, a position for site scounting, a position for continuity, a position for research, etc. Basically, there is not title of dramaturg in the film.tv world, but there are a lot of jobs that require (or would be better performed by) someone with dramaturgy skills.