What is a dramaturg? What is dramaturgy? What are the political implications for the way that plays produce meaning in performance?

Over the last decade, the role of the dramaturg has become more common in the theatrical process, but it is still a new term for many theatre-goers. Theatre & Dramaturgy offers a working definition of what dramaturgy means, and asks how understanding theatre from the perspective of dramaturgy can help us understand the world around us.

This concise study examines how western histories and practices of theatre have functioned to achieve their effects, through understanding dramaturgy as the arrangement or structure of the work in time and space – both at the fictional level and in relation to performance. Exploring the relationship between plays and their meaning in production, this guide focuses on how understanding dramaturgy is critical to understanding how plays achieve their effects.

For further information: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/theatre-and-dramaturgy-9781350332461/

Zoë Svendsen is a dramaturg and theatre director, who makes participatory theatre performances and installations exploring ecological crisis and capitalism with her company, METIS, as well as reimagining early modern texts for the contemporary stage with theatres such as The Globe, the National Theatre, the Young Vic and the RSC. Zoë is Associate Artist with Cambridge Junction and Hightide, and in 2021-22 developed the concept of ‘climate dramaturgy’ as associate artist at the Donmar. Zoë is Lecturer in Drama and Performance at the University of Cambridge.