I love this interview on The Interval with dramaturg Sarah Lunnie. Dramaturgy is such a mystery to so many, and I think her explanation is helpful. The interview was by Sarah Rebell, photo by Tess Mayer.
“I think of myself as an early audience and as a collaborative editor.
The first definition is more spiritual. It speaks to the idea that the work we make is ultimately for someone. Theatre is fundamentally an exchange: an offering of experience and a reciprocal offering of witness. Creating into a vacuum can be draining and disorienting. So the first thing I have to offer, as elemental and obvious as it sounds, is my interested attention.
The second one speaks to the more practical nature of my collaboration. I work with writers, directors, and other generative artists to sculpt dramatic and theatrical story. My approach is responsive—meaning I am looking to the artist who has engaged me to frame and guide our work together. And it’s iterative, not linear—meaning I don’t enter the collaboration with a fixed idea of where we’re going to end up, and progress isn’t always forward. The work can take the form of written exchange or, more often, conversation, and includes both the posing of questions and the offering of more direct proposals. In a production context, my most direct engagement is with the writer and director, but that can vary. With The Mad Ones, for instance, I am also in regular conversation with the actors, who, in our company structure, are also the primary generators of text and the central editorial/dramaturgical hivemind, and the designers.”