Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation in Contemporary Dramaturgy offers fresh perspectives on how dramaturgs can support a production beyond rigid disciplinary expectations about what information and ideas are useful and how they should be shared.

The sixteen contributors to this volume offer personal windows into dramaturgy practice, encouraging theater practitioners, students, and general theater-lovers to imagine themselves as dramaturgs newly inspired by the encounters and enquiries that are the juice of contemporary theater. Each case study is written by a dramaturg whose body of work explores important issues of race, cultural equity, and culturally-specific practices within a wide range of conventions, venues, and communities. The contributors demonstrate the unique capacity of their craft to straddle the ravine between stage and stalls, intention and impact.

By unpacking, in the most up-to-date ways, the central question of "Why this play, at this time, for this audience?," this collection provides valuable insights and dramaturgy tools for scholars and students of Dramaturgy, Directing, and Theater Studies.

About the Author

Philippa Kelly is Resident Dramaturg for the California Shakespeare Theater; Professor and Chair of English at the California Jazz Conservatory; Adjunct Professor at the University of California, Berkeley; and Visiting Senior Fellow at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

Amrita Ramanan is the Director of Literary Development and Dramaturgy at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and a Board Member for the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. She was previously an Artistic Associate and Literary Manager at Arena Stage for five seasons.

Reviews

This remarkable collection of case studies sheds light on one of the least understood and yet crucially important aspects of contemporary theater practice: the role of the dramaturg. By turns, innovator, instigator, cultural historian, interpreter, provocateur, and visionary, the dramaturg shapes the lived experience of actors and audiences alike. In an illuminating introduction and a moving epilogue, Philippa Kelly shows that the diverse and distinctive voices assembled here are agents of radical change in the theater and in the world beyond its boundaries.

Stephen Greenblatt, author of Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare

"This exploration of the multi-faceted craft of dramaturgy challenges readers, educators and theatre makers to do more - much more - to make theatre genuinely, intentionally and seriously inclusive. Always grounded in the pragmatics of theatre practice, this collection is much needed, a treasure house of ideas, debates and daring, expertly curated and illuminatingly introduced by Philippa Kelly."

Elizabeth Schafer, Professor of Drama, Dance, and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London

"This remarkable collection of case studies sheds light on one of the least understood and yet crucially important aspects of contemporary theater practice: the role of the dramaturg. By turns, innovator, instigator, cultural historian, interpreter, provocateur, and visionary, the dramaturg shapes the lived experience of actors and audiences alike. In an illuminating introduction and a moving epilogue, Philippa Kelly shows that the diverse and distinctive voices assembled here are agents of radical change in the theater and in the world beyond its boundaries."

Stephen Greenblatt, author of Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare

"This exploration of the multi-faceted craft of dramaturgy challenges readers, educators and theatre makers to do more - much more - to make theatre genuinely, intentionally and seriously inclusive. Always grounded in the pragmatics of theatre practice, this collection is much needed, a treasure house of ideas, debates and daring, expertly curated and illuminatingly introduced by Philippa Kelly."

Elizabeth Schafer, Professor of Drama, Dance, and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London

"Philippa Kelly has been doing pioneering work in dramaturgy for many years. In this collection of remarkably intimate essays she gathers a community of likeminded practitioners, each committed to enhancing the truth and urgency of contemporary theatre. For Kelly and her peers, the dramaturg does far more than serve playtext, director, and cast. The dramaturg sounds the pulse of the collective moment, what Hamlet calls its 'form and pressure'. The attention thereby entailed must always be scrupulously local, alert to each exchange's multifarious particulars; nothing is achieved, nothing is changed, by rehearsing generalities or by iterative obedience. Theatre is no more and no less than the weathervane of democracy, attuned to its weather like no other medium. Listen to these voices, and the future is in good hands."

Simon Palfrey, Professor, Brasenose College, University of Oxford

Book Information
ISBN 9781032474632
Author Philippa Kelly
Format Paperback
Page Count 158
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 120g