Drama what?

Drama what? Dramaturgy! For Goldie, Max & Milk

I have been working on putting together a dramaturgy packet for the director, actors, and a few crew members to read. You might be thinking to yourself "What's a dramaturgy packet?" or "what is dramaturgy anyway?" I admit it is a rather funny word. However, when you break the word down a little bit it is less intimidating. Let's take a look:

If we cut the word in half, we get drama and turgy. I think we all know what drama is, but let's replace that word with play. "turgy" means 'the study of' (similar to a more familiar word, liturgy). Once we put the two together it is: "The study of plays or drama." Dramaturgy can have many more specific meanings and can almost be defined on a case-by-case basis, depending on many factors like the relationship a dramaturg has with a director or playwright. Dramaturgs also are known for translating plays, as well as writing analysis of work, and much much more. In this case, I'm going to talk about one particular play–Goldie, Max & Milk–and one particular experience–mine. 

For the past few weeks, I have been working on a 14-page dramaturgy packet. A dramaturgy packet consists of research relating to the play, the characters, the setting, the time and sometimes making sure the right information in relayed to the actors that the playwright intended. For this play, I decided to break down my research by characters: Goldie, Max, Milk (it's such an important topic I deemed it a character), Mike, Lisa, and Shayna. Anything that didn't quite fit in those categories went into a glossary of terms. To get started, I reread the play, taking notes on topics, words, or specific areas that effected each of the characters, as well as their jobs, their hobbies, interests, etc. Then I started on the research. While many women out there may have experience with breastfeeding, I, however do not. Since Max is breastfeeding a newborn and Goldie is a lactation consultant, I thought I would start there, and then move onto the other players. After all the other characters, I combed through the script again to decide what needed to be in the glossary (words actors may not know the meaning of, places mentioned, basically details!). Then I just needed to edit and print. The whole process took about month of working on and off. I had many other things come up that took me away from this project, so it's always good to start early!

As of today I have only had contact with the playwright and the director via email, so it will be interesting to actually meet them both and see where I will fit into the rehearsal process. Tomorrow is our first rehearsal. We will being doing a read-through, and have a luncheon with board members, staff, and invited guests. I'm looking forward to the whole experience.

Until next time…

~Alison Maloof, Artistic Apprentice