Dramaturgy Analyses, Part 1

 

[When I was a grad student in New York University’s Department of Performance Studies, I took two courses in dramaturgy, plus a Supervised Research in the field.  I took one of the classes twice: Production Dramaturgy (Spring 1984 and Spring 1985); it was taught by Cynthia Jenner, who also oversaw my Supervised Research in the summer of 1984.

[Cynthia (b. 1939) went by C. Lee Jenner professionally; she’d written for the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, the Christian Science Monitor, the Villager, the London Guardian, Theatre Crafts, Stages, Other Stages, Performing Arts Journal, and New York Theatre Review.

[Cynthia’d been a literary manager or dramaturg for New York City’s American Place Theatre (1981-84) and the Interart Theatre of the Women’s Interart Center before teaching at DPS in 1984-85.  She also taught at Brooklyn College, City College of the City University of New York, and Brown University.

[The Spring ’84 dramaturgy class included an internship at a theater company and Cynthia placed me with the small Off-Off-Broadway showcase troupe StageArts Theater Company.  That semester-long internship (18 February-2 May 1984) converted into the Supervised Research of the following summer.  In both assignments, I was required to keep a journal; at the end of the gigs, I also wrote up a summary of my work and my conclusions about the experience.

[Since I started this extended series on dramaturgy and literary management with my two-part “History of Dramaturgy” (31 December 2022 and 3 January 2023), I’ve decided to continue the effort by posting the concluding documents of the StageArts placements.

[(I followed “A History of Dramaturgy” with a four-part series, “Leonardo Shapiro’s Strangers: A Dramaturg's View” [8, 11, 14, and 17 January].  Before the current extended dramaturgy series, I posted “Dramaturgy: The Conscience of the Theater” on 30 December 2009.)

[StageArts was founded in 1977 by co-artistic directors Nell Robinson, a director, and Ruth Ann Norris, an actress.  (I was a few years shy of 40 in 1984, and I’d say Robinson and Norris were at least a half decade older than I was.)

[Created originally with the goal of producing plays that portray human nature in a positive, glowing manner, the company had presented such classics as Blithe Spirit (Noël Coward, 1941) in 1977, The Winslow Boy (Terence Rattigan, 1946) in 1978, Cap & Bells (Luigi Pirandello, 1916) in 1984, and Ira Levin’s first play, Interlock (1958).

[After 1982, StageArts began concentrating on the development of new plays and had premièred such works as Thirteen by Lynda Myles (1983), Zoology (a trilogy of plays) by Martin Jones (1983), Pigeons on the Walk by Andrew Johns (1984), Sullivan & Gilbert by Ken Ludwig (1984), and Jones’s Snow Leopards (1985).  (The company ceased producing at the end of 1987.)

[My responsibilities at StageArts included, among other things, establishing a script-soliciting, -reading, and ‑evaluating process, creating a reporting format, and advising and assisting the artistic directors in matters of script selection. 

[The company had reached a certain level of success in its seven years of producing, but it wasn’t attracting the kind of attention the artistic directors wanted—and needed if the company was going to advance in the competitive and crowded field of professional theater in New York. 

[The artistic directors wanted my help to find the kinds of scripts that would attract critical and funding interest.  One way to accomplish this, they observed from the theaters like theirs in the city, was to present new plays.  Towards this end, they wanted me to help them start a program for finding and evaluating new scripts.

[At the end of the internship, I handed in to Cynthia an “Internship Report,” concluding with a “Profile of Artistic Policy” for StageArts and an “Analysis of Literary Department and Recommendations for Improvement.”  Below are the last two documents, dated 15 May 1984.]

PROFILE OF ARTISTIC POLICY
StageArts Theater Company
New York City
15 May 1984

The StageArts Theater Company is an Off-Off-Broadway producer primarily of Showcases and Tiered Non-Profit Theatre Code productions, using a show-to-show rented space at The Actors’ Outlet, 120 W. 28th Street [in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan].  As described by co-artistic directors Nell Robinson and Ruth Ann Norris, the artistic policy of the company is to produce plays that deal with problems of the individual.  StageArts’ own statement of their “artistic goal” specifies their interest in

The production of beautifully crafted plays that speak to the best in us.  We believe that the qualities most absent on plays of the last few decades are a positive view of human beings and a respect for dramatic structure.  We want to give a chance to plays that strive for integration of plot, characterization, ideas, language and spectacle into that unique artistic whole which makes unforgettable drama or comedy.

The stress, according to Robinson and Norris, is on “beautifully crafted,” by which they mean the “well-made play.”  This translates into Realistic plays on a narrow scope and small scale, treating problems in a family or limited group.  Norris and Robinson offer as prime examples of this type of play, Terrence Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy and William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker [1959], both primarily Realistic, optimistic melodramas.

[According to a New York Times article on the topic, “Showcases are nonprofit productions meant to display the talents of actors to agents, casting directors and producers in the hope that they will be chosen for roles in other shows or that the play will be picked up by a producer.  The actors receive no weekly salaries.” 

[Participants who are Actors’ Equity Association members are supposed to be compensated for transportation costs and expenses, however.  The union also restricts the size of the audience, number of performances, length of run, hours of rehearsal, and admission charge.

[“Showcases also present works by new playwrights and directors,” wrote Andrew L. Yarrow in the Times (“Showcase Theater, Outlet for Inspired Nobodies,” 25 November 1988).  “Many producers use showcases to win potential backers, but others consider them the only affordable way to stage experimental theater in New York.”

[Since showcase productions don’t operate under an Equity contract, shows that want to cast union actors or employ a union stage manager must abide by certain rules set down by Equity in the Showcase Code.  These are known as “Equity showcases” and casting notices usually say so to attract union actors to the auditions.  There are also many non-union showcases, in which Equity members are not supposed to perform.  StageArts, of course, produced union showcases.

[The Showcase Code governed one-time productions, not theaters that produced regular seasons.  The Tiered Non-Profit Theatre Code was a set of rules governing showcase productions at theaters presenting annual multiple-play seasons and operating under larger budgets, like the Public Theater or the Roundabout Theatre Company.  It was “tiered” because the obligations increased incrementally for theaters with increasingly larger budgets.

[A well-made play is a dramatic form that arose in France in the late 19th century (la pièce bien faite) involving a tight plot, a largely standardized structure, and a climax close to the end.  The story usually depends on a key piece of information kept from some characters, but not the audience, and moves forward in a chain of actions that use minor reversals of fortune to create suspense.

[The genre was common at the turn of the 20th century, but modern writers like Alan Ayckbourn (b. 1939) and Noël Coward (1899-1973) continued to use it.  Even greats like Shaw and Ibsen applied the form to their work.]

The only production StageArts presented during my internship was Pigeons on the Walk by Andrew Johns and directed by Nell Robinson [March 1984].  The play was a “Grand Hotel” set-up of a number of people who meet in a Manhattan OTB parlor during the course of nine races on one day.  Some are regulars and know one another well, thus making this a somewhat closed group, like an extended family.  There was no unifying crisis, but several small, separate ones, most of which were, indeed, family-oriented. 

[Off-Track Betting, with parlors all over the city, was legalized in New York City in 1970 and closed in 2010 due to lack of profitability.]

Pigeons seems an excellent sample of StageArts’ artistic interest.  Other plays produced in past seasons include Blithe Spirit, The Winslow Boy, The Hasty Heart [John Patrick, 1945], and The Heiress [Ruth and Augustus Goetz, 1947], all clear examples of this kind of material.

[In the margin of my typed profile, Cynthia wrote where I observed that the plays were examples of StageArts preferred style: “But so regularly done in community and/or stock [productions] that they wouldn’t interest reviewers.  Useful only in all-star revivals or to showcase actors.”  The company had stopped presenting standards like these, 30-35 years old and more, in the early ’80s in favor of new scripts.]

Clearly, StageArts is neither experimental nor particularly socially concerned, though their shows are well-produced in all respects.  In the past, they produced a mix of old and new material fitting their taste.  This season, however, they switched to a policy of producing solely new works with an eye to attracting critical attention which they need to get funding.  So far, this policy has not produced results, and Robinson and Norris and I have discussed looking at some older, but less frequently produced plays.  Robinson has expressed an interest in Edmond Rostand [French. 1868-1918].

[Again, Cynthia commented, regarding the lack of critical response: “Need aggressive press agent,” a conclusion to which I also came.  After I raised the name of Rostand, my teacher merely wrote: “Oy.”]

I have begun to suggest some plays a little afield of StageArts’ usual material.  Robinson has become interested in a new play I recommended that has a broader scope and deals with a topical problem.  She has also become intrigued with the works of Yevgenii Shvarts [Russian, 1896-1958], certainly no Realistic playwright.  In the future, StageArts may produce a mixture not only of old and new plays, but of Realistic and non-Realistic (however slightly) ones.  It is unlikely they will become truly experimental, but some variety may be in the offing.

[I posted my StageArts script reports on three of Shvarts’s plays on Rick On Theater in “Yevgenii Shvarts: Three Script Evaluations,” 9 March 2020.  Three Rostand play evaluations are also posted in “More Script Reports IV: Classics,” 14 December 2021.

[The “new play” in which Nell Robinson was interested was one I gave her, written by a neighbor, Ken Greenberg, whose earlier play, Comes the Happy Hour!, I had directed in an independent showcase in 1982.  The play in question here was Little Boy, Fat Man, set in the years just before, during, and just after World War II and is an exploration of the moral and psychological implications of working on the atom bomb.  All the men—two Americans, a Viennese Jew, and a Japanese—met while studying nuclear physics in Germany.]

*  *  *  *
ANALYSIS OF LITERARY DEPARTMENT
AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT
StageArts Theater Company
New York City
15 May 1984 

It is difficult—if not impossible—to analyze a department that virtually does not exist.  Although StageArts lists Holly Hill as Literary Manager, she does not function full time, and does not seem to have any regular, specific responsibilities.  In fact, I have had no contact with her, and when I suggested I talk with her about the program, neither Robinson nor Norris thought there was any need.  If there is a dramaturgical program extant, I do not know what it is.

[Holly Hill was a reviewer for the short-lived New York Theatre Review (1977-79), the Gannett Westchester (New York) papers, Other Stages, and the London Times.  She taught at John Jay College of the City University of New York and was considered an authority on British dramatist Terence Rattigan (1911-77).  When I noted in my internship journal that Norris and Robinson seemed to hold Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy up as “their ideal play,” Cynthia, who knew Hill, remarked, “Holly Hill’s influence.  Dissertation on Rattigan.”]

When I first interviewed with Robinson and Norris, it was clear they had no specific idea how to use me.  (They had two specific tasks for me to perform, but no general plan for me.)  My estimation is that there is no program, and that it will be my responsibility to create one, with the advice and consent of Robinson and Norris.

[When I made the comment in my journal that the artistic directors “don’t really know what to do with me,” Cynthia wrote, “That’s the wrong perspective.  Don’t worry if they know what to do with you.  Do you know what to do with or for them?” 

[My response to Cynthia would have been that: a) I do worry about their not knowing how to make use of me because this was an internship, not a job.  I could—and did—do many things for StageArts on my own initiative.  Sometimes I checked with the artistic directors beforehand and other times I informed them after the fact, but I had only limited autonomy since I wasn’t a true member of the theater’s staff.  I could only be a self-starter to a limited degree.

[Cynthia, of course, had been the lit manager at APT for three years and had established a working relationship with artistic director Wynn Handman (1922-2020).  She’d been hired for an existing post that was a valued member of the theater’s staff.  She knew what her boundaries were and where she could push the envelop some.  As an intern in a post that hadn’t existed in practice till then (Holly Hill was lit manager in name only, really), I wasn’t in that position.

[And b): if Robinson and Norris didn’t know how they could use me/my skills, they couldn’t ask for help or suggestions where I might be effective but didn’t know they needed support.  “Intern” and “dramaturg” aren’t synonyms for “mindreader,” after all.]

Based on the two responsibilities laid out at the start of my internship [that would be 1) organizing the multistep script-finding process and 2) researching a play-reading series], I plan to work up a format for reporting the evaluation of plays, and a workshop program of readings of works under consideration to nurture them into—and possibly through—production. 

[There really were two different reading programs.  One, the developmental or “evaluative” (as Cynthia called them) readings, didn’t exist at all yet.  These were strictly for the playwright and the theater, to test the script for viability as it made its way to production.  I called these “script-readings” because it concerned the working text, not a form of performance of a finished play.

[The other was the play-reading series, which StageArts already had, but it was ad hoc, randomly scheduled, and only minimally promoted.  These were staged readings with actors who’d rehearsed and an audience made up largely of StageArts subscribers and other theatergoers (i.e., the public).  It’s a public relations and audience-building exercise that could present both old and new plays.]

For the present—and immediately foreseeable future—StageArts should restrict its program to testing viable scripts and doing only minor rewriting to smooth out small problems.  Perhaps in a few seasons, with a strong production/dramaturgic background established, they can embark on a program of developing material from an earlier stage. 

[In my journal for the Summer ’84 Supervised Research, I reported that Norris and Robinson wanted to work with developing playwrights, Cynthia wrote: “But they are incompetent to do this task.”  I, myself, concluded, “I’m not sure R[uth] A[nn] & Nell are equipped to work with someone w[ith] so much to learn,” to which my teacher merely added, “Yes.”]

Specific projects I plan to start on include a systematized evaluation process, so organized that a new dramaturgical intern can inherit the system without a glitch, and readers can be recruited and, with a standardized format, be able to produce evaluation reports all containing the same useful information.  At present, there is no format, and practically no guidelines. 

(Robinson and Norris specified only a plot synopsis and a statement of the theme; I had to fill in the rest on my own.  They are satisfied, but I am not.)

[Cynthia gave me some feedback on this—she’d devised several reporting forms for theaters and other evaluation programs like the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships for American Playwrights Program—and I incorporated them in later reports.]

From the reading series Robinson and Norris wanted me to research, I plan to build a workshop program through which to take scripts selected from the evaluation process.  I would like to see a private, unrehearsed reading, leading to a semi-rehearsed private reading, and finally one (at least) staged reading before an invited audience.

In between, the literary manager will work with the playwright on changes and adjustments, with input from the director and the artistic directorship.

[Cynthia’s sole comment here was: “This game plan seems sound to use.”  A “private reading” would be before the artistic directors, the production director (if one is already hired), the lit manager, and the playwright.  The “invited audience” would include those people, plus a few specially selected knowledgeable friends and supporters—i.e., actors and directors, other theater artists, friends of the author but not subscribers or the public.

[An “unrehearsed reading” is one for which the cast would meet with the director (if no director has been assigned, the literary manager usually performs this task) and writer about two hours before the reading and read through the script to familiarize themselves with the words.  There’s no movement by the actors; someone reads the stage directions as necessary.  At a “semi-rehearsed reading,” the cast meets with the director and the playwright one time a day or so before the reading to put a little context (i.e., acting) into the reading.  There’s still no moving about the stage.

[In a “semi-staged reading,” the actors get up from their seats, scripts in hand, and face each other as they speak, perform some simple, sometimes mimed, movements, but there are no props or costumes and moving about the performing area is minimal and suggested. 

[The idea for all these readings is to put the emphasis on the words, not spotlight the actors’ skills.  The point is to reveal to the writer what works and what doesn’t and where potential problems might develop when the play goes into actual rehearsals.  It is a diagnostic tool, not a performance.]

Subsequent to these two developments, StageArts will eventually need someone to assume responsibility for production assistance in terms of program notes, subscriber information, and incidental projects such as lobby displays and intermission features.  Currently, Robinson and Norris do all this themselves, taking time away from directing and producing. 

[Nell Robinson directed most of StageArts’ productions. 

[Cynthia had what she labeled a “credo”: “I believe the experience of a play starts in the lobby.”  She also admonished me, “Research can help [a] dramaturg [with] support services designed to enrich the experience for theatergoers.”]

With an expanded and more complex program, the subsidiary duties will become far too time- and thought-consuming to be accomplished in stolen time.  When StageArts reaches that point, say after a season or two, I would like a system to have been worked out so a new literary manager can move in and the program will be self-perpetuating.

Until I have gone over all the particulars with Robinson and Norris, and begun to work out the steps, I cannot accurately predict the specifics of any of this; it would be premature to do so now.  Tentative plans have been made to begin the discussion stage shortly.  Based on the outcome of that, I will start making plans and working out details for the first trials.

[The “tentative plans” I spoke of above was, of course, the Supervised Research which continued the internship with StageArts through the summer of 1984,  There was a summing-up at the end of that stint as well, and I will post it next.  Come back to Rick On Theater on 25 January to see what I had to say at the conclusion of my gig as lit manager of the StageArts Theater Company.]