University of Puget SoundSound Ideas

LMDA Newsletter LMDA Archive

10-2016

LMDA New & Noteworthy, volume 2, no. 1Ken Cerniglia

Megan McClain

Matt McGeachy

Diane Brewer

Jeremy Stoller

See next page for additional authors

Follow this and additional works at: https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdanewsletter

This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the LMDA Archive at Sound Ideas. It has been accepted for inclusion in LMDA Newsletter byan authorized administrator of Sound Ideas. For more information, please contact soundideas@pugetsound.edu.

Recommended CitationCerniglia, Ken; McClain, Megan; McGeachy, Matt; Brewer, Diane; Stoller, Jeremy; and Steketee, Martha Wade, "LMDA New &Noteworthy, volume 2, no. 1" (2016). LMDA Newsletter. 12.https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdanewsletter/12

https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu?utm_source=soundideas.pugetsound.edu%2Flmdanewsletter%2F12&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPageshttps://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdanewsletter?utm_source=soundideas.pugetsound.edu%2Flmdanewsletter%2F12&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPageshttps://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdaarchive?utm_source=soundideas.pugetsound.edu%2Flmdanewsletter%2F12&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPageshttps://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdanewsletter?utm_source=soundideas.pugetsound.edu%2Flmdanewsletter%2F12&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPageshttps://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdanewsletter/12?utm_source=soundideas.pugetsound.edu%2Flmdanewsletter%2F12&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPagesmailto:soundideas@pugetsound.edu

AuthorsKen Cerniglia, Megan McClain, Matt McGeachy, Diane Brewer, Jeremy Stoller, and Martha Wade Steketee

This book is available at Sound Ideas: https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdanewsletter/12

https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdanewsletter/12?utm_source=soundideas.pugetsound.edu%2Flmdanewsletter%2F12&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages

Welcome to New & Noteworthy, LMDA's monthly newsletter. View this email in your browser

October 2016Issue 2.1

Hello, members and friends of LMDA!Welcome to the LMDA monthly newsletter New &Noteworthy. In the process of performing some

standard list maintenance, we resetour "unsubscribed" list. If you don't wish to receive

the monthly newsletter from LMDA, you can updateyour preferences here or unsubscribe.

spotlight on: productiondramaturgyMegan McClain sat down with dramaturg KenCerniglia to talk about his work on Hadestown, afolk opera by Anaïs Mitchell recently staged at NewYork Theatre Workshop. Hadestown presents anew take on an old myth by tracing the idealisticOrpheus on his journey from the land of the livingto the industrialized labor-driven underworld ofHadestown to find his love, Eurydice.

Megan: How did you join the process?

A Note fromthe President

Happy Fall! I hope thisfinds you enthusiasticallypulling out your sweaters,picking apples, hunting forgourds, and settling intothe new theatre season orschool year. Since Beth Blickers andher incomparable teampassed us the LMDA reinsafter the terrific Portlandconference, yourExecutive Committee and

Subscribe Past Issues Translate

https://us14.campaign-archive.com/?e=%5BUNIQID%5D&u=b89796e6935c1bd1192501c9e&id=d319eaef0ahttps://lmda.us14.list-manage.com/profile?u=b89796e6935c1bd1192501c9e&id=6e76b75b35&e=%5BUNIQID%5Dhttps://lmda.us14.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=b89796e6935c1bd1192501c9e&id=6e76b75b35&e=%5BUNIQID%5D&c=d319eaef0ahttp://eepurl.com/ckkL9Xhttps://us14.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=b89796e6935c1bd1192501c9e&id=6e76b75b35javascript:;

Ken: I was asked to come on board by Jim Nicola[Artistic Director of New York Theatre Workshop]. Iwas interested, but I didn’t know the director,Rachel Chavkin, or Anaïs, so I met with them. Ithink they interviewed a few other people, whichwas great. One dramaturg does not fit all. Then Ispent another full day with Anaïs. We took a walkon the High Line and talked about her work. She’sa first-time dramatist and primarily a singer-songwriter. So it was about figuring out what madeher tick, where she was confident, and where shewas a little unsure about what she was writing. TheWorkshop hired me for a reading and then theproduction.

M: I love the way you describe it. It’s almost likea first date when a dramaturg is getting to knowa new collaborator for the first time. You haveto make sure there’s chemistry on both sides.

K: Absolutely. I think earning that personal rapportand trust, particularly for artists who haven’tworked with dramaturgs before and are unsure oftheir function, is very important. Because the workis primarily based in feedback, it needs to feelsupportive and useful and not like a grade orcensorship. And that can only come through apersonal relationship.

M: Hadestown began as a collection of songs.How did the structure change from playlist totheatrical event?

K: Ten years ago, Anaïs started writing anddeveloping Hadestown with Ben Matchstick.Staged as a kind of pageantry concert, it wastheatricalized, though not necessarily fullydramatized from the beginning. Anaïs alsorecorded the concept album with Ani DiFranco andall these other amazing recording artists. While she

I have hit the groundrunning on many fronts,including makingimprovements to ourwebsite and planning ournext conference: “Art,Access & Activism” inBerkeley, CA, on June 22-24, 2017. Please keepyour eyes peeled thismonth for further details. We sincerely look forwardto serving you during thenext two years, so pleasereach out with yourquestions andsuggestions at any time.

Ken Cerniglia

Odds & Ends

LMDA held its firstmonthly Twitterchat on September20. Check out theStorify summaryhere. Join us forour nextconversation onTuesday 10/18 at3pm ET.#LMDAchat.

For our NYCmembers andfriends: Newly-appointed Metro-

https://storify.com/MissBoyle/lmdachat-on-contracts-and-compensation?utm_content=buffer5383f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

was touring Hadestown, a producer, Dale Franzen,saw its theatrical potential and started developingit.

M: How did your work as dramaturg supportthe shaping of the play?

K: Anaïs and Rachel had already spent two yearsworking on it together, so by the time I came in, itwas pretty fleshed out. So much had beenworkshopped and included storytelling momentsthat, in their minds, were being told visually. Now,as the new person in there, I was only looking atwhat was on the page, so I had all of thesequestions. I think I was useful in the process by justtrying to get clarity out of the storytelling and alsoasking questions about what’s fundamentallydriving the action. It’s great that it’s a hybridtheatrical event that’s not your traditional bookmusical. It’s about wanting to preserve what’sspecial about this particular artist and bring somesense of structure, and flexibility within thatstructure, to the project.

M: Has your work on this project made animpact on your own dramaturgical process?

K: Just having more patience for the model. Havingseen Rachel Chavkin’s work, I dig that kind of trustin a musical and visual sensibility. Work that canhave its own coherence and that’s not necessarilypoint A to point B to point C in a conventionalsense of dramaturgy and dramatic structure. It’s acollaged way of working, a devised way of working.

M: What was your favorite part of the process?

K: I love that Anaïs is so open to feedback. I’m gladthat in a short amount of time I was able to gainenough of her trust that she can just bounce thingsoff of me without holding back. If you’re a

NYC Regional RepRachel Abrams ishosting a Town Hallon Monday,October 17 from 5to 7pm at the Ça VaCocktail Lounge,IntercontinentalTimes Square, 300West 44th St. Andsave the date for adiscussion on"Dramaturgs asCreativeProducers” onMonday, Nov. 7 at5pm. Detailsforthcoming.

Looking for a job?Don't forget tocheck the listings atlmda.org/jobs.

RememberingIris Turcott

by Matt McGeachy

On September 22, 2016,my friend and mentor IrisTurcott – a giant of ourprofession – died, leaving

dramaturg and you earn your collaborator’s trust tohear first passes of things, then you’ve succeeded.

Shaina Taub, Amber Gray, Damon Daunno, and Lulu Fall inHADESTOWN at NYTW. Photo by Joan Marcus.

spotlight on: academicdramaturgy

VP of University Programs Diane Brewer talkedwith Jeremy Stoller about the play analysis classshe teaches using scripts nominated to TheKilroys List, and both the practical challenges andthe transformative nature of academic work with in-process texts.

What inspired her: “When the Kilroys List cameout, I'd been thinking for a long time about whatmakes it difficult to get people excited about newwork. I think it has a lot to do with familiarity. Andbecause we often develop familiarity when we're inschool, that's where we shape our taste. So I

a prominent hole in myheart, which I imagine isabout the size of the smallblue ashtray that sheused to keep on the blueharvest table in her livingroom in Toronto, whereshe helped to shape theCanadian theatricallandscape, and alsoshape me. Since shedied, a lot of tears havebeen shed, and we held abeautiful memorial servicein Toronto where thebreadth and depth of herimpact in Canadiantheatre was apparent inthe list of speakers andperformers: John Alcorn,Leslie Arden, RonnieBurkett, Adam Pettle,Anusree Roy, and JudithThompson, to name just afew. Over these past fewweeks a rich portrait hasemerged which madeclear just how rich,complex, and dynamicIris’s life was and althoughshe’s gone now, throughher impact and her work,she lives on. [...]

Read the full version ofMatt's tribute to Iris onour website.

http://thekilroys.org/http://www.lmda.org/news/16oct2016

started thinking about how important it is thatstudents are getting exposed not only to new work,but also to the process of reading new work.”

How this course is different: Aside from the classfeaturing only female-identified writers, “What wasimportant with this class was that I go outside myarea of familiarity. I wasn't going to read the playsbefore the students did. They couldn't rely on me tobe the “expert” who could tell them how to feelabout the play. Instead, we have to wrestle withwhat it really means to pick up a manuscript of anew play.”

The curriculum: “The class wasn't about, 'is theplay good? Is the play bad?' it was more like, 'If Icould talk to the playwright, this is what I wouldwant to talk about.' So that they're thinking of thework as alive.” Once per semester, the studentswould actually talk with one of the playwrights onthe syllabus.

Nuts and Bolts: Students paid $60 to enroll in theclass (approximately the cost of published texts foran equivalent class). The total money collectedwas divided among the playwrights (this workedout to $68.57 per playwright most recently).

“The primary concern [among agents and writers]was that a copy of an unfinished play would get outinto circulation” and possibly be performed. Theletter of agreement she created stipulated “thatthese plays would not be distributed, in any wayperformed, that we would just read the plays inclass and discuss them. I posted the plays onBlackboard with a very strongly-worded statementabout the honor code policy and not redistributing.”There have been no issues of the scripts beingimproperly shared or performed.

Challenges: Diane noted that the work of tracking

down contact information for writers and agents,collecting manuscripts, and getting signed letters ofagreement and W-9s, was far greater than for acourse using published texts.

Successes: “I can say without hesitation that thestudents took their responsibility with these textsextremely seriously. The current dramaturg for thestudent production of Sarah Ruhl's Orlando, whowas not even in the class, sent an e-mail to SarahRuhl's agent, saying that there are three words inthe text that we suspect are typos but we don'twant to say anything that Sarah Ruhl didn't actuallywrite, so we just want to confirm that these are thewords that they should be saying. It has radicallychanged the culture of the students, and the waythat they think about the possibility ofcommunicating with agents, and that playwrightsare real live people.”

Next steps: Diane wants to make it easier forother professors to teach new work. “The majorityof my time spent on developing a course like this isabout making sure that the agents and playwrightsunderstand how serious I am about treating thework with respect” and dealing with paperwork,tracking down manuscripts, etc. “There's got to bea streamlined process to make it easier. I have thishuge idea [for a platform where] agents andplaywrights whose plays appear on the Kilroys Listcould have their plays. And students could pay foraccess, based on taking a course. And then themoney would be distributed through that site. I'mtrying to find someone else who's as interested indoing this as I am. I feel like I need a team ofpeople to make this work.”

If you are interested in discussing this project withDiane, she can be reached at

db57@evansville.edu.

regional spotlight: new yorkby Martha Wade Steketee

Two leading names in U.S. dramaturgy from twodifferent generations – LMDA founder Mark Bly andestablished freelance dramaturg Heather Helinsky– gathered to discuss their professional journeyswith Metro New York City LMDA members on May24, 2016 in the friendly offices of the DisneyTheatrical Group, above the New AmsterdamTheatre.

I moderated the conversation, which ranged fromtraining, to reflections on balancing institutional andfreelance dramaturgy, new play developmentstrategies, and observations on trends in the field.

When introduced as one of the first dramaturgseducated at the Yale School of Drama, Bly listedmany individuals and organizations that predatedacademic dramaturgy programs in the U.S.,including “ghost dramaturgs” of the 1930s such asGeorge Kaufman and Moss Hart, and O'NeillPlaywrights Center founder George White. Herecalled that the birth of the MFA in dramaturgy atYale happened in the late 1970s while he was inhis MFA studies in dramatic criticism and history.Drama School Dean and Yale Rep Artistic DirectorRobert Brustein decided to reframe the program tocover dramaturgy, inspired in part by developmentsin other parts of the country. “Brustein understoodwe were like these orphans and everybody treatedus like we were eggheads. He decided that wewere going to function as dramaturgs on the YaleRep productions.” And they defined the dramaturg

role as they went along.

Brustein left Yale in 1980 to establish the AmericanRepertory Theater at Harvard, where Helinsky didgraduate work in the early 2000s,and Brustein wasstill teaching after he retired in 2002. His vision ofdramaturgical training had modulated through theexperience of the Yale Rep and ART, Bly andHelinsky reflected. “You are the next artisticleaders that are going to shape and refocus thismovement,” Helinsky recalled Brustein telling herclass. “I left grad school with this feeling ofBrustein’s blessing and his call to action to go outand not just dramaturg a production but be a leaderand keep pushing the regional theater movementforward.”

Bly noted that when more institutional titles beganto include “Director of New Play Development,” itsignaled that “the end is near for dramaturgs,”since it meant that fewer people are functioning asdramaturgs in rehearsal. “What the fuck do youhave time to do if it’s not being in the rehearsalworking on the play? Nothing is more importantthan that.” Helinsky agreed. “The reason why Itravel so much is so I can be present in therehearsal room. As a dramaturg, I may have beenthe first person to read a playwright's new work,but a playwright may not learn what they need untilthe very end of the rehearsal process. I have tomake my job as a production dramaturgy thepriority, so I can be there for those moments ofdiscovery.”

Bly returned to Yale under Dean and ArtisticDirector Stan Wojewodski, to be the AssociateArtistic Director and co-chair of the dramaturgy andplaywriting program. “I realized in the regionaltheater the directors had too much control of the

development process and the playwrights neededto be more in the center of it. And so I went to Yaleto develop those people at the other end of thetunnel.” Now based in Manhattan, Bly works withthe National New Play Network Kennedy CenterProgram Dramaturgy Intensive and as Co-Directorof the Fordham/Primary Stages MFA Playwritingprogram.

Helinsky is based in Philadelphia, and has a long-term relationship with the Great Plains TheatreConference, where in the 8-day program she hasdramaturged as many as 13 plays at once. "InGPTC's process, the playwrights arrive and thePlayLabs readings happen first. It gets everyone'snervous energy out. The rest of the time, thepressure is off for a public presentation and isdedicated to revisions and conversations. We getto know each other, speed date in rehearsal, andspend the rest of the week sitting on the porchtalking about their next play, and that births anotheryear’s process.” Helinsky builds her practice byinvesting in playwrights over time rather than takingsingle deep dives with individual plays. “I've hadthe privilege of working with one writer through asequence of plays, some of them trilogies. You getto collaborate with them through a trajectory oftheir work and you start talking across plays."

Bly noted his professional reset came after a healthcrisis a few years ago. “I stopped being this personthat only thought about the future, being the uncleor father or godfather of dramaturgy. I created theBly Creative Capacity Grants because I decided Inow was about investing in other people instead ofme.”

Copyright © 2016 LMDA, All rights reserved.

Want to change how you receive these emails?You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

https://www.facebook.com/LMDA-Literary-Managers-and-Dramaturgs-of-the-Americas-139309247024/?fref=tshttps://twitter.com/LMDAmericashttp://www.lmda.org/mailto:commnunications@lmda.orghttps://lmda.us14.list-manage.com/profile?u=b89796e6935c1bd1192501c9e&id=6e76b75b35&e=%5BUNIQID%5Dhttps://lmda.us14.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=b89796e6935c1bd1192501c9e&id=6e76b75b35&e=%5BUNIQID%5D&c=d319eaef0ahttp://www.mailchimp.com/monkey-rewards/?utm_source=freemium_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=monkey_rewards&aid=b89796e6935c1bd1192501c9e&afl=1

University of Puget SoundSound Ideas10-2016

LMDA New & Noteworthy, volume 2, no. 1Ken CernigliaMegan McClainMatt McGeachyDiane BrewerJeremy StollerSee next page for additional authorsRecommended CitationAuthors

tmp.1536280668.pdf.zxhFz