The Theatre Times: Dramaturgy in America was a European ideal grafted onto native aspirations. Arising in the 1970s, it became widely disseminated as a job description and set of emerging ideas in the 1980s, as a new generation of artistic directors took over regional theaters This piece attempts to indicate macrohistory by relating anecdotal microhistory, revealing snapshots of the evolution of American dramaturgy. In a series of interviews conducted over the winter and spring of 2013, Robert Blacker and I discussed the role of the dramaturg in a trio of theatrical institutions that represent three kinds of theatre organizations– regional, developmental, and classical.
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I’m not sure if I’m amazed or disheartened by the fact that this man was the artistic director of a company that produced such well-known shows such as The Laramie Project and The Light in the Piazza and I have no clue who he was. I think this speaks to how many people are involved in developing and producing a show that doesn’t get any recognition. I am so glad to have read this article because I’ve learned more about the history of dramaturgy in this article than I have in my past four semesters. Come to think of it II have no real knowledge of where stage managers came from or anything about the history of stage management. I had no idea that it dramaturgy was such a new job and area relative to the existence of theatre in America. This article is extremely illuminating to the power of an Artistic Director. I seldom think about who is the most influential position in theatre and I would happen to say that Artistic Directors are. This article points out how powerful they are in growing a company or supporting a way of doing theatre. Artistic Directors are something that I so seldom think of and I’m glad I read this article to be pointed out to how powerful an Artistic Director is.
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