Dramaturgy

Dramaturgy is a passion for me…

I became occupied with a career in the theatre when, at university, I took classes in social thought and political science. I also took classes in English, that focussed on dramatic literature. It was than that I realized I could fuse my passion for social advocacy with the art form of theatre. Of all the art forms theatre provides the best opportunity for bringing the contemporary world into sharp focus. Energized by that insight, I committed myself to a life of championing Canadian stories by playwrights with similar interests.

I found my dramaturgical style early in my career. For 10 years I went to weekly therapy. Over that time I began to realize that I was assuming the interrogative style of my therapist when I engaged with playwrights. It gave me the ability to be empathic and attentive to their POV. I gradually felt more able to find a way to discuss the discrepancies between a playwright’s ambitions, and what their writing has effectively accomplished, in a sensitive manner.

Through my own therapy, I learned that a person’s ambitions, anxieties, lived experiences and emotional make up, will all profoundly impact their ability to be dispassionate observers of their own written work. But they are always the best advocates of their own work. That's a conundrum. But sometimes, with the help of “an outside eye”, they might be better able to plumb their hidden depths, to uncover powerful truths that are hidden there.

Providing “an outside eye” to playwrights is supporting God's work. Just as God creates a world and sets it in motion, so do playwrights. Tragically it takes them more than seven days to do it.

Here is a mini-dramaturgy bio:

• dramaturged 100’s of plays over the past 35 years

• directed 30, or more, multi-week, workshop presentations

• was instrumental in running Tarragon’s “playwright’s unit”/ 1985-2007, working with 138 different playwrights, for a year each, culminating in a one day public playreading for each

• created Theatre Passe Muraille’s “Buzz” workshop protocols, using “audience-dramaturgy” for the targeted development of creation-based work/ 2009-2019