Monday, October 25, 2021
Meet the dramaturg for 'Hadestown'
DC Metro Theater Arts: A dramaturg is one of those jobs in the theater world that many people don’t quite understand yet that are vital to a show’s success.
The dramaturg works with the playwright and creative team to support a show’s development by asking key questions, starting conversations, researching, providing context, and helping the artists as they work together to bring the book to life.
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Since I started school here. I have become increasingly more appreciative of dramaturgs. Honestly, it was because I knew very little about the field before that. This position seems so incredibly challenging I can not imagine how much pressure there is to develop the entire literature's meaning with the support of the playwright. There is so much responsibility on them to give the show value. You look at culture and history and the literal meaning of the work, but you also have to go beyond that into the abstract. I know as a designer that I work heavily from the dramaturg’s concept when creating my vision for the piece. For example, if the dramaturg decides that the set being in the 1800s is vital to the meaning, as a scenic designer I have to ensure that it visually achieves that world look. You have to keep so many perspectives in mind for this work and the dramaturg has to make all of that cohesive and understandable; highly impressive.
I knew a lot about dramaturgy before coming to CMU. I even had a bit of experience with it. However, I often don’t think about the role in the context of less historically based pieces such as Disney or Marvel productions. I found that aspect and range of experience within Ken Cerniglia’s job super interesting. Ken Cerniglia has a highly impressive resume and educational background. He obviously knows a lot about so many different things, and I feel like just having a conversation with him would be so much fun. I love where he discussed beginning to give back in his efforts to mentor younger dramaturgs. Creative team members get less attention than performers naturally, but I feel as though dramaturgs get even less recognition or opportunities for mentorship. It is wonderful he is using his experience to pass knowledge and skill on to the next generation of dramaturgs.
“A dramaturg is one of those jobs in the theater world that many people don’t quite understand yet that are vital to a show’s success.” This is the opening line and one of the most crucial ideas in this article. I think that dramaturgy is something that often goes unnoticed and unappreciated in the theatre industry both by the audience and the cast/crew of a show. Dramaturgy in a show like Hadestown is vital in order to receive the context for a story with so much history. Hadestown has greek influence in addition to references to the New Orleans way of storytelling. These ideas have to be executed well in order to serve the story justice. I feel incredibly lucky to have had exposure to dramaturgy and I am even more grateful that Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama focuses so much on it. Dramaturgy work makes shows come to life. Without context, the world would be dull.
Before I came to CMU, I never knew dramaturg was a thing, and quite honestly, I’ve never thought about the writing and researching part of theatre before. After getting to know peers from our own Dramaturgy program, it brought me realisation that the work of dramaturgs are extremely important in the production process, especially at the development stage. In the article, Cerniglia talks about having worked in Disney productions prior to working on Broadway, which kind of shocked me because I am surprised that dramaturgs can also be in Disney theatres. I can understand why dramaturg are important in productions like Hadestown, but in The Little Mermaid? Not so much. But after reading the article, I now see why Cerniglia was there — every production has character development, and who better to ask than the dramaturgs? Seeing Cerniglia talking about rejoining productions on tour to help performers find characters in new environments provided a lot of insights for me to the works of dramaturgs.
I actually had no idea that dramaturgy was even a thing until I came to CMU as a freshman. But seeing all of the work they have to do to research for shows makes it really apparent how important they are to the creative process. It’s definitely another aspect of entertainment that goes underappreciated. The historical part of the research is something that I think is pretty interesting, and that I could feasibly do, but the additional way they need to be able to pull from the abstract and derive hidden meanings and symbols is just way beyond me. (probably why i’m a TD!) Just the little bit of dramaturgy work we had to do in some of our classes freshman year was enough for me to garner a deep respect for this work. Cerniglia’s background in theatre studies is incredibly impressive - both a masters and a Ph.D. in theatre history?? Not to mention her work background too! Hadestown is an incredible show and you can tell she put a lot of work into getting it to what it is.
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