A Love note to Dramaturgs
Dramaturgs are beleaguered. They are bashed, silenced; they are badly paid. And still, they persevere. They are bashed by the very people they have sacrificed their own family lives to defend! Playwrights! Already in these pages I’ve called them nuns. I’ve accused them of sharpening pencils too sharply.
Let me honor you, dramaturgs. Let me shower you with love. Playwrights need you. Desperately. We need you to sit next to us at the first rehearsal when we feel like we are being flayed open and exposed. We need you to sit next to us at the first dress rehearsal and tell us that it’s worth saving even though we feel worthless and doomed. We need you to sit next to us during the first preview and give us two or three notes that are easily accomplished when we want to leave the theater forever and take up marine biology or nursing or any profession that doesn’t involve public humiliation. We need you to be nice to us when the director, or artistic director, or the audience is being mean to us. We need you to deflect strange questions during audience talk-backs and remind audience members that they are most helpful when they describe their own experience rather than trying to fix the play.
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The above is an excerpt from Sarah Ruhl’s “100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater.” London : Samuel French, 2014.
Please, follow the link to read the full essay on Breaking: (Character)'s website.