Re: RAT ticket expiration and dramaturgs

[MFarkash@aol.com]

myquagga@yahoo.com (Michael Wright) wrote:

<dramaturgs who know how to work
<with new plays are wonderful helpers in areas of
<research, knowledge of playwriting history, structure,
<and often serve as intermediaries between directors
<and playwrights. 

I appreciate you may have had some wonderful experiences with dramaturgs, but 
I'm  very suspicious of the need of an intermediary between director and 
playwright. That's one more level of potential misunderstanding.  A 
playwright ought to be paired with a director he/she can work with.  
Eliminate the middlepeople.  As far as a "helper," I'd love to find one to 
help me research and bolster my structure -- an assistant. Wish I had the 
money to hire one. (I'm leery of being "assigned" an assistant.)

Wright also writes:
<we can only
<make better theatre if we respect all its citizens.


Just who bestowed citizenship status on dramaturgs? What ARE they in terms of 
background?   Academics? Playwrights with spare time? Directors who are not 
directing?  

And for that matter, when did landlords become artistic directors?  I'm 
speaking of producers in small LA theatres with whom I've worked, who charge 
playwrights for the space, and then also muck around with the artistic vision 
of the piece, as a condition of producing the piece. I've HAD this 
experience, being assailed with financial demands, and with artistic demands 
that I've had to resist -- because producer/landlords fancy themselves 
dramaturgs.

Things are better for me, now that I'm being produced by companies who prize 
the playwrights' vision, and make suggestions, not artistic conditions. But 
when I was starting out, in my salad days -- oh it was a nightmare out there, 
 a virtual night terror of "soi disant "dramaturgs."

Michael Farkash