While much information is freely available online, some questions can't be reliably answered with a Google search. Thus, print and electronic content available through libraries still play an important part in a dramaturg's research. The guide suggests resources available to MTSU users that are relevant for researching a play.
"In the context of what dramaturgs do, dramaturgy is a comprehensive exploration of the contexts in which the play resides. The dramaturg is the resident expert on the physical, social, political and economic milieus in which the action takes place, the psychological underpinnings of the characters, the various metaphorical expressions in the play of thematic concerns; as well as on technical consideration of the play as a piece of writing: structure, rhythm, flow, even individual word choices." Terry McCabe, Mis-Directing the Play, 2001, p. 64.
The Art of Active Dramaturgy by
The Art of Dramaturgy is a transformative approach to dramaturgical thinking and collaboration. Each chapter includes ways to approach so-called old plays or set texts (think Shakespeare or Pinter or Parks) and then takes it up a notch to show how to use those skills when working on new plays.
The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy by
This collection focuses on contemporary dramaturgical practice, bringing together contributions not only from academics but also from prominent working dramaturgs. The inclusion of both means a strong level of engagement with current issues in dramaturgy, from the impact of social media to the ongoing centrality of interdisciplinary and intermedial processes.
The contributions survey the field through eight main lenses:
world dramaturgy and global perspective
dramaturgy as function, verb and skill
dramaturgical leadership and season planning
production dramaturgy in translation
adaptation and new play development
interdisciplinary dramaturgy
play analysis in postdramatic and new media dramaturgy
social media and audience outreach.
Mis-Directing the Play by
Terry McCabe, himself an accomplished stage director and teacher of theatre arts, here attacks what he calls the growing decadence that plagues contemporary stage directing. He argues for a radical reorganization of the director's view of his role. It has become an article of faith in the theatre, Mr. McCabe observes, that a play is about what the director chooses to have it be about. But what right does a director have to treat a play as a found object, to be reshaped to express the director's concerns? None whatsoever, Mr. McCabe replies. He examines anecdotally a range of work by different directors by way of offering a substantial critique of today's leading theory of stage directing, and he offers an alternate approach. He challenges the notion that a play is the director's vehicle for self-expression, arguing that the idea of the director as centerpiece of the theatre tends to distort plays and oppress actors. He explores what it means to direct a play when directing is properly understood as a process of self-effacement. Mis-directing the Play examines the role of the director as collaborator with actors, designers, dramaturges, and playwrights. Throughout, the book's focus is on shedding the counterproductive myth of the director as creative auteur and urging in its place a return to first principles: the idea of the director as the interpretive artist in charge of putting the playwright's play onstage.
Backwards and Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays by
The best-selling script analysis book for thirty-five years Considered an essential text since its publication thirty-five years ago, this guide for students and practitioners of both theater and literature complements, rather than contradicts or repeats, traditional methods of literary analysis of scripts. Ball developed his method during his work as literary director at the Guthrie Theater, building his guide on the crafts playwrights of every period and style use to make their plays stageworthy. The text is full of tools for students and practitioners to use as they investigate plot, character, theme, exposition, imagery, conflict, theatricality, and the other crucial parts of the superstructure of a play. Also included are guides for discovering what the playwright considers a play' s most important elements, thus permitting interpretation based on the foundation of the play rather than its details. Using Shakespeare's Hamlet as illustration, Ball assures a familiar base for clarifying script-reading techniques as well as exemplifying the kinds of misinterpretation readers can fall prey to by ignoring the craft of the playwright. Of immense utility to those who want to put plays on the stage (actors, directors, designers, production specialists) Backwards & Forwards is also a fine playwriting manual because the structures it describes are the primary tools of the playwright.
Drama Online is a collection of over 1,200 playtexts and scholarly works (context & criticism and theatre craft) from across the history of the theater, along with selected video content:
