Dramaturgy facts for kids

Dramaturgy is the study of how plays are put together and how their main parts are shown on a stage. It's about understanding the story, characters, and ideas in a play and making them work for an audience.

The word "dramaturgy" first appeared in a book called Hamburg Dramaturgy (1767–69) by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Lessing wrote these essays while he was the world's first dramaturge at the Hamburg National Theatre. Dramaturgy is different from writing a play or directing it, but sometimes one person does all three. Some playwrights combine writing and dramaturgy. Others work with a special expert, called a dramaturge, to help get a play ready for the stage.

You can also think of dramaturgy as "changing a story into a form that can be acted out." It gives a play its basic idea and shape. Often, a dramaturge tries to make a story fit with what's happening in the world today. They might use ideas from different cultures, or refer to other plays and movies, or explore questions about gender and how people are shown in the story.

What is Dramaturgy?

Dramaturgy, as a special field, was created by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in the 1700s. The Hamburg Theater hired him for a job that we now call a "dramaturge." He was the first person in Europe to have this role. He said his job was to be a "dramatic judge." This meant he had to figure out the best ways to stage a play.

From 1767 to 1770, Lessing published his thoughts in Hamburg Dramaturgy. These writings looked at, criticized, and explained the German theater of his time. Because of this, Lessing is known as the father of modern dramaturgy.

After Lessing, many other famous writers and thinkers also thought about how plays work as an art form. These included Johann von Goethe, Thornton Wilder, and Arthur Miller.

A German playwright named Gustav Freytag tried to explain the parts of modern dramaturgy in his 1863 book The Technique of the Drama. This book is famous for explaining the basic shape of a play, including how tension builds and is then solved. This is often called Freytag's Pyramid. His book was like a guide for early Hollywood screenwriting.

One of the oldest and most important books about plays in Western culture is Poetics by Aristotle. He wrote it around 335 BCE. In this book, he looked closely at tragedy plays. Aristotle thought the play Oedipus Rex (around 429 BCE) was a perfect example of a tragedy. He talked about how characters, actions, and speech are connected. He also gave examples of good plots and thought about how the audience reacts. His ideas are still called "Aristotelian drama" today. He discussed important ideas like the moment a character realizes something important (anagnorisis) and how the audience feels a release of pity and fear (catharsis).

Later, in the 1900s, a German playwright named Bertolt Brecht developed something called Epic theatre. Many of Brecht's new ideas for the stage, like the "estrangement effect" (or Verfremdungseffekt) and the acting style called gestus, were meant to be different from Aristotle's ideas.

Poetics is the oldest surviving book about plays from the Western world. The oldest non-Western book about plays is probably the Sanskrit work Natya Shastra (The Art of Theatre). It was written between 500 BCE and 500 CE. This book describes the parts, forms, and story elements of ten main types of ancient Indian drama.

What Does a Dramaturge Do?

Dramaturgy involves exploring everything about a play. A dramaturge becomes an expert on many things. They learn about the physical, social, political, and economic world where the play takes place. They also study the characters' feelings and reasons, and the deeper meanings in the play. They even look at the technical side of the writing, like the play's structure, rhythm, and specific word choices.

Dramaturges who work for a theater company might be involved in many parts of making a play. This can include helping to choose the actors. They might also give feedback on plays that are still being developed. They help the director, actors, and audience understand the play's history and why it's important today. In America, this is sometimes called Production Dramaturgy.

These dramaturges might create files with information about a play's history or its social background. They might write notes for the play's program or lead discussions after a show. They can also write study guides for schools and groups. All these actions help the director combine ideas about the text, acting, performance theory, and historical research into the play before it opens.

Dramaturgy and Ownership

Because dramaturgy can mean different things and a dramaturge's job can change from one play to another, there have been some unclear situations about who owns the rights to a play.

In 1996, there was a discussion about how much a dramaturge can claim ownership of a play. This happened with the musical Rent. The author, Jonathan Larson, had passed away. Lynn Thomson, who was the dramaturge for Rent, said she was a co-author of the musical. She asked the court to say she was a co-author and that she should get 16 percent of the money from the play. She made her claim after the show became a big hit on Broadway.

Even though she made her claim later, there had been similar cases before. For example, the dramaturge for the play Angels in America gets 15 percent of the money. However, on June 19, 1998, the court decided that Lynn Thomson was not a co-author of Rent and was not owed royalties. The case was later settled outside of court, and Thomson received some money after she said she would remove her work from the production. This shows how important a dramaturge's contributions can be, even if their role in ownership isn't always clear.

See also

In Spanish: Dramaturgia para niños

• Dramaturge
• Dramatic structure
• Writing Drama, whose original title is "La Dramaturgie"