Dramaturgy Analyses, Part 2

 

[After my internship with the StageArts Theater Company concluded with the end of the Spring 1984 term at NYU, Cynthia Jenner, the instructor for Production Dramaturgy, the course I was taking in the Department of Performance Studies; the two StageArts artistic directors, Ruth Ann Norris and Nell Robinson; and I worked out a plan to continue my work as literary manager through the summer (21 May-31 August 1984, NYU’s Summer Term) as a Supervised Research. 

[As with the spring internship, the subject of “Dramaturgy Analyses, Part 1,” I was obligated to keep a journal.  At the end of the term, I turned in the journal, copies of all my work product from the project, and a “Summary and Evaluation” (dated 9 January 1985).  As I did with Part 1, I’m posting the final document from that Supervised Research.

[It isn’t strictly necessary for ROTters to gave read Part 1 before reading Part 2 below, but it’s probably a good idea.  I use some jargon terms and some individual expressions that I define and explain in the first post that I take the liberty of not re-defining here.  (Theater may be a somewhat commonly-understood  field, especially to readers of Rick On Theater, but dramaturgy is still an esoteric subject even among theater professionals.) 

[I have also identified StageArts, the co-artistic directors, and Cynthia Jenner in the first installment for ROTters.  “Dramaturgy Analyses, Part 1” was posted on ROT on Sunday, 22 January.  Earlier postings that are relevant to this one are “Dramaturgy: The Conscience of the Theater” (30 December 2009), “A History of Dramaturgy” (31 December 2022 and 3 January 2023), and my short series, “Leonardo Shapiro’s Strangers: A Dramaturg's View” (8, 11, 14, and 17 January).]

SUMMARY AND EVALUATION
StageArts Theater Company
New York City
9 January 1985 

I’ll start off with my conclusion: StageArts doesn’t really want a literary manager. 

First of all, neither Nell Robinson nor Ruth Ann Norris knows how to make full use of the services a good literary manager can provide.  That’s not an insuperable difficulty—they could be educated.  A persevering dramaturg could discuss with them what they need, suggest ways he/she could help, and demonstrate his/her abilities.

Norris, and particularly Robinson, both profess an interest in this.  They did seem to want to know what I can do, what a dramaturg’s area of operation can cover; they asked about this several times during the spring and summer period I worked with them.

The fact is that StageArts can use, even needs a full-fledged literary manager.  They have a woefully inadequate process of evaluating scripts, a haphazard Christopher-Columbus method of discovering material, and no organized system of getting scripts through the reading process. 

[The “Christopher-Columbus method” is actually a colloquial typing term.  Touch-typists know instinctively where all the keys on a typewriter are because they’ve learned the keyboard from hours of practice and experience.  Non-touch-typists use the Columbus method of finding the right key: they discover it and land on it.  A synonymous, perhaps more familiar expression is the “hunt-and-peck” method.]

The smallness of the StageArts operation means that Norris and Robinson shoulder the whole burden of running the company.  They desperately need a member of the staff who can take part of the burden away and organize the whole process of seeking, evaluating, testing, and returning scripts. 

This was what I tried to begin over the summer on the assumption that if I could work with them full time for an extended period, I could get a working literary department started.

I began by contacting literary agents on behalf of the theater to introduce StageArts and its artistic policy to these sources of new scripts and playwrights.  I also contacted some other sources I thought might pay off in the long run. 

I tried to forge a system of reading and evaluating the scripts that came in so that it would be a routine path.  I proposed a prototype workshop program for testing new material “on the ground” after it was accepted from reading.

All of this I did with an eye to creating a literary management program that could be taken over by anyone hired to do the job.  Norris and Robinson seemed enthusiastic and receptive to the ideas and plans I discussed with them.  They made all the indications that they valued my ideas, suggestions, knowledge, and opinions.  They always seemed genuinely interested in what I had to offer.

The problem was that I didn’t really seem to be getting anything accomplished.  I was reading a great number of scripts, most from the sources I had begun to cultivate, and sending off reams of seriously considered evaluations, in a new format I devised to make them detailed and complete for both present use and future reference.

[In “A History of Dramaturgy: The Modern Era” (on Rick On Theater on 3 January), I wrote about John Corbin, the first U.S. literary manager employed at a professional theater (New Theatre, 1908-10).  He resigned in frustration after only two years because he’d found himself “doing a lot of play reading”: five scripts a day, every day of the year for his entire tenure.  It’s the lot of most play-readers, lit managers, and dramaturgs the world over.

[In her marginalia, Cynthia wrote: “Solution: recruit a battery of 1st level readers so the process goes more rapidly.”  That’s fine advice—and rather obvious, since I did several gigs as a first reader myself, as a glance at the various postings of my script reports on this blog will attest.  But I wasn’t an actual staff member at StageArts, even if the internship had morphed into a Supervised Research project.  I didn’t have the authority to hire anyone on my own initiative, and StageArts didn’t have the money to hire readers. 

[As a newbie in the field, too, I wasn’t really in a position to recruit a bunch of readers to work for free—what could I offer them as recompense?  The next StageArts production wasn’t scheduled until February 1985, so I couldn’t even offer potential readers Annie Oakleys.]

Norris and Robinson both frequently asked for my estimation of a particular script they had received from one of their own sources, and they seemed to agree with my reports.  I thought I was beginning to understand their taste better, and was being more successful at finding scripts they would like and could consider.

I was also trying to convince them to broaden their sights a little in two ways: to consider some less-known older plays to compliment the originals they wanted to produce, and to consider some slightly less conventional plays to attract the attention of critics and producers who would be less likely to see a showcase that was predictably conventional.

Both artistic directors expressed interest in these two ideas, especially the former.  But in the end, little of what I was saying was resulting in any real action.

At first this was all just frustrating.  I kept thinking that I should just have to ease them into really listening to me.  I thought it was all a matter of getting them to hear what I was saying.  It wasn’t until the end of the summer that I realized what was really operating here.  They didn’t trust me.  They trusted my intelligence, experience, and reliability.  But they didn’t trust me. 

It wasn’t personal—they didn’t trust anyone from the outside to get into the inside.  They paid lip-service to the idea of having a trusted colleague to share the load, but they are so jealous of their control over the company, they won’t let anyone else’s ideas in.

[Concerning Ruth Ann and Nell, Cynthia remarked:

I think this is only partly right.  I think they also feel intimidated by more refined intellects against whose sensibility they are forced to examine preconceived prejudices and dated tastes they are loathe to part with.  People hate to change what they are comfortable with, as a general rule.

[She agreed with me, however, that they were “jealous of their control” of StageArts.]

All of this became clear to me when they began planning the opening of a show on which they were collaborating with another producer.  The production had run into a snag, and it jeopardized not only its production, but the production of StageArts’ own first show of the season.

They never told me what the problem was (it was no more than some problem with finding a suitable theater), and wouldn’t even confide the titles of the co-production or their own first show.  I was literally frozen out of the whole matter.

I wasn’t even enough of an insider to be troubled with the names of the shows being produced until they were announced to the general public.

Another indication of StageArts’ inability to trust me is in the shows they have chosen to produce this season.  Aside from the co-production, which was outside the StageArts’ season, they have selected three plays so far.  (They may expand to a four-play season this year.)

Two of the scripts were never passed to me at all, and the third is one the artistic directors asked me to read after they had read it, and to which I reacted somewhat coolly.  They are producing it anyway.  (The play is Don Nigro’s November.)

Only one play that I recommended was given an evaluation reading; none of the others received further action.  Some of these may still be under consideration, and may be included in future seasons, but no action has been taken since I passed along the recommendations and the scripts.

Some of the playwrights and agents are becoming understandably anxious, and I have received several phone calls and letters of inquiry about a few scripts we have in limbo.

None of this indicates that StageArts should not continue to produce.  Their work is usually high-quality, though often unexciting.  They produce good showcases for actors—the kind of show an agent can see and judge the quality of a performer in the best light.

This is a valuable service to the acting community.  Whether they are contributing to the artistic life of the theatergoing public, I can’t say. 

[Cynthia: “I can.  No, they aren’t.]

Their ultimate goal is to produce these same kinds of shows, both old and new, with stars.  It seems unlikely that they will reach that goal, and I doubt they will ever develop a program of introducing new plays of any real consequence. 

That being the case, I doubt they have any real need for a literary manager in the full sense of that title.  All they need, and all they want, is a full-time script-reader.

My experience with StageArts indicates that whoever fills such a position for them ought not to have ambitions beyond a literate go-fer.  Norris and Robinson don’t really want anything else, and they won’t accept anything more.

[As I reported in the earlier post, I took two dramaturgy courses at NYU.  The first was Directing and Dramaturgy (Fall 1983), taught by Carl Weber (1925-2016), who’d been an actor and dramaturg at the Berliner Ensemble (1952-57), and assistant director to Bertoit Brecht (1898-1956). 

[The term project for that class was to make a stage adaptation from non-dramatic material, a frequent assignment for dramaturgs.  My partner and I did a mash-up of Molière’s Tartuffe and John Henry Faulk’s Fear on Trial (book, 1964; CBS television movie, 1975).

[As I also explained, I took Cynthia’s class twice.  (I also audited it once as well.)  In the first class, the one during which I interned at StageArts, we had a term assignment of making a complete work-up of dramaturgical materials to accompany the rehearsal and production of a play.  I chose one of my greatest favorites, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. 

[While I was doing my lit management for the internship, I was also assembling useful information of Godot for the cast and director; an annotated bibliography on the play, its genre (Absurdism), and the author; proposals for the lobby display; articles for the program; and a students’ study guide.  There was also a breakdown of the play’s structure and a production history.  (I’ve posted parts of this project on ROT.)

[The second time I took Cynthia’s course was in the spring of 1985, and my internship was with Cynthia herself.  She was in the earliest stages of forming Theatre Junction, an incipient playwrights’ company she wanted to be run by dramaturgs and focus on both new plays and new performance forms.  This encompassed new adaptations of non-dramatic material and translations.

[TJ was ultimately never realized. (At the same time as Cynthia was trying to launch TJ, she was also a principal participant in starting Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of America [LMDA, now called Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas].  LMDA was established in April 1985 and I served as Vice President for Communications in 1986-87.) 

[Cynthia enlisted me to be her assistant after we’d become acquainted during the first Production Dramaturgy course I took from her and I did a number of jobs for her, including scouting new writers and plays.  I also read some scripts and other material to determine their potential suitability for TJ.  I’ve posted some of the results of the work I did for TJ on this blog from time to time.

[In Spring 1986, I audited Cynthia’s course and did an internship with the Theatre Communications Group, the service organization that promotes professional, non-profit theater in the U.S.  Among its many services, TCG publishes American Theatre, a monthly magazine; Plays in Process, a series of scripts of new plays produced in its member theaters; and the annual Dramatists Sourcebook (1981-2010). 

[During my internship with TCG, the literary services section was in the midst of preparing the 1986-87 edition of the Dramatists Sourcebook.  It was my principal assignment to assist editor M. Elizabeth Osborn (1939-93) and her staff with that task.

[The Sourcebook was updated annually, with detailed questionnaires sent to all member theaters at the beginning of the process (before I arrived on the scene in February) and the staff was in the midst of collating the information from the returns. 

[The end result was a reference book for playwrights about when and how to submit plays and musicals to producing theaters—the Sourcebook listed only TCG members—and for festivals and contests.  The Sourcebook listed theaters that are looking for new scripts (and which ones accept unsolicited submissions), and their typical submission criteria, time frames, and contact information.  

[It was a massive undertaking and included helpful advice from the field—i.e., dramaturgs and literary managers—about how to submit scripts, the best formats for typescripts, tips on making adaptations and translations (a sideline for many playwrights), and other issues facing working dramatists.

[In fact, the term project for this iteration of Production Dramaturgy was to make an adaptation or translation.  I paired up with a classmate who spoke and read Russian (his mother taught in the NYU Department of Slavic Languages).  He had obtained a microfilm copy of a 1910 stage script adapted by Fyodor Sologub  (pseudonym of F. K. [Fyodor Kuzmich] Teternikov, 1863-1927) of his Decadent and Symbolist novel The Petty Demon (romanized Russian: Melkiy bes, 1905).

[The novel had been translated into English four times (most recent: translated by S. D. Cioran; Ardis Publishers, 1983), but the script, popularly produced by a theater in Moscow, had never been translated into any language or published (even in Russian).  My partner had made a photocopy from the microfilm of the typescript from a Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) library. 

[We translated a chunk of the play—one act, I recall—and then selected a scene to refine and polish as a sample to turn in.  We used the published English translation as a trot and my partner did the literal translation (his Russian was better than mine, plus the text was typed in the pre-revolutionary alphabet, with which I was not familiar) and I put it into actable American English and form (and did the typing—I had a word processor by this time).

[At TCG, I did a little (copy) editing, but mostly my job was collating the returned questionnaires and calling theaters that hadn’t sent theirs in yet.  (If you think that’s a simple job, remember that TCG’s membership covers not only the three time zones of the continental U.S.—so, when we get to work at 9 a.m. in New York City, it’s only 6 in the morning in California—but also Alaska—where it’s 5 a.m. when we start work—and Hawaii—4 a.m.) 

[As that effort was in progress, the data from the questionnaires had to be entered into the word processor (this was pre-Internet) and each theater’s entry had to be printed out and proofread so it was ready to be sent to the printer (which was still working from paper copy). 

[The TCG internship was demonstrably different from the StageArts placement, but I got a real overview of the variations among the regional theaters in the United States.  (I also got to speak to a lot of lit managers, dramaturgs, and artistic directors at theaters that work with new plays.) 

[I also learned quite a bit about editing, particularly for a book (as opposed to, say, a journal article) that came in handy later.  I had remarked in one of my StageArts journals that some response I’d made to a situation was like being a teacher, a position I was in at NYU at that time as a ”preceptor” in the undergraduate Expository Writing Program.  Cynthia added in the margin that it was also like an editor, which is an aspect of a dramaturg’s work along with being a critic.

[The term project for this class, by the way, was, like with Carl Weber’s Directing and Dramaturgy class, to make an adaptation from non-dramatic material.  Because I was auditing the class, I was assigned to work with a classmate taking the course for credit.  My partner and I decided to draw on the aphorisms and other sayings of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) to compile an “illustrated lecture” of Wilde’s visit to the United States (1881-82).

[Our concept was that while Wilde was lecturing, the “slides” would be brought to life by a small cast speaking the writer’s words in brief scenes, the dialogue for which was taken from his occasional comments about America. The performance was to be fashioned in the style of a Victorian music hall entertainment.  (I posted this snippet of “Nothing But My Genius” on ROT on 12 May 2011.)

[Later, I did other work that bore on my qualifications as a dramaturg and literary advisor.  I said above that I served as LMDA’s VP of Communications.  My main responsibility in that position was to serve ex officio as the editor of the members’ newsletter, which I titled Program Notes during my tenure.  I also hired on as editor of the newsletter of the now-defunct American Directors Institute, a service organization for stage directors and artistic directors.  I started this quarterly publication, which I named Directors Notes, and edited it from 1986 to 1988.

[(Incidentally, the similarity in the titles of the two newsletters was coincidental.  They both refer to a kind of writing of which the members of the two organizations did a lot.  The simpler newsletter title Notes was in use at the time by a musicians’ publication.)]