Student Blog: I Don't Understand My Major

I can’t explain what my major is to other people because I don’t fully understand it myself. I am currently studying Dramaturgy, and I never knew what this was until I was applying to schools. Since enrolling in school, I have had to find different ways to explain what I do because I am always met with confusion when I say the title of my major. But how do I explain what I do when I don’t fully understand myself? At times I say it is the study of theater. Other times I say I am the middle person between the director and the rest of the elements: actors, costumes, set, etc. I’ve also said that I am the person who does all of the research behind theater. One time I used the analogy that I was the creature that is half human(being the actor), half Avatar(being the director) in order to explain my major. All of these things are true, yet it still isn’t the full picture. 

When I was looking at applying to college, I focused on theater or acting studies, knowing I ultimately wanted to end up working in entertainment in one form or another. One day my dad pulled me aside and told me that Carnegie Mellon offered Dramaturgy and that I should take a look at it. Truthfully, I didn’t understand what that meant, but I took a shot and applied. Little did I know a field I thought I had no experience in would lead me to where I am now. 

See, I believed I had never done “dramaturgy” before. But little did I know I had been doing that the entire time I’ve been a part of theater. I’ve always loved finding the patterns and themes of a show, dissecting and discovering aspects of the world and character that connect to the themes. This is most likely why Merrily We Roll Along is one of my favorite shows; everything connects to something in a previous/future scene with such intentionality. And that is one of the main goals of dramaturgy: to have an intentional and purposeful reason for everything that is happening on stage. Sometimes this comes in the form of continuity throughout the show; other times it shows in mentioning that a piece of media on stage isn’t working for the show. Everything we do needs to have contextual evidence to back it up. 

Our role as a dramaturg will change depending on the show and what it needs. Speaking with some of the upperclassmen who have already assisted on shows, they say it completely depends on what the actor needs. For one of the shows, the director wanted them to be at all of the rehearsals, explaining to the actors the predicted timeline since the show was told out of order, and they had a huge say in the final tech of the show. On a different show, the director didn’t want them in ANY of the rehearsals or any say in tech, only wanted the dramaturgs there as a fresh set of eyes. Despite all of this, there are a few items a dramaturg needs to be prepared with. 

The dramaturg needs to be prepared with all of the script analysis and contextual materials ready. What dramaturgs provide can look like anything from lobby displays and audience engagement to annotated glossaries and plot bead diagrams. While the role of the dramaturg changes from show to show, it is common for them to provide context and evidence to both the director and actors, sometimes even designers, helping the cohesion and adaptability of the show. 

Truthfully, I don’t fully know how to explain myself in this blog because I am still learning about my own major. I still don’t know the best way to describe my work. What I do know is that the longer I have been learning about it, the more I realize how integral either dramaturgy work or a dramaturg is to the process of a show. We can help any show by being an extra set of eyes to focus on and fine-tune the show to bring it to its highest potential. 

P.S. I hope to write a blog like this each year to update it with more of the information I have learned about dramaturgy.