What is a dramaturg, exactly? You can read Helena’s thoughts on dramaturgy, new play development, and artist advocacy in a recent Q&A with the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas — included below.
Who are you?
My name is Helena Pennington, and I’m a New York City-based dramaturg and literary administrator. My focus these days is primarily on new work.
Where do you work?
I’m currently the Literary Associate at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. There, my office — the literary office — oversees the script submission and selection process for the annual National Playwrights Conference and National Music Theater Conference. Most of my days are dedicated to reading them, thinking about them, advocating for them, and responding to them. My evenings, on the other hand, are spent working as a freelance dramaturg: attending rehearsals, meeting one-on-one with playwrights and directors, writing grant and project proposals, and more.
What is your favorite part of working as a dramaturg? Your least favorite?
You know, it’s very difficult to pick just one favorite thing. I love being part of a community of artists, I love learning everything I possibly can about an unfamiliar subject, I love lending an editorial eye to the playmaking process. Most of all, though, I love that exhilarating ah-ha moment early in the rehearsal process, when everyone suddenly feels equipped to step away from the table and onto their feet. I think this is because so much of what we do, as dramaturgs, lies somewhere between theory and practice, intent and effect — so it’s thrilling when everything starts to come together into one big, messy, audacious, embodied whole.
When did you first realize you were “dramaturging,” or when did you first start working as a “dramaturg”?
Oh, what a question. In hindsight, I'm sure I spent much of my life engaged in some kind of dramaturgical thinking, even before I could put a name to it. For that, I think I can point to my time as an undergrad at Reed College. I initially focused on costume design, with only the haziest understanding of dramaturgy as practice. Eventually I realized I was more excited about the dramaturgy of costumes than designing them myself — parsing the ways in which we make meaning of colors, textures, and objects on stage, and thinking through what it means to mix and remix images and aesthetics. This didn't quite click until my brilliant professor, Dr. Kate Bredeson, asked me to dramaturg a production of Gertrude Stein's DOCTOR FAUSTUS LIGHTS THE LIGHTS. After that, I was hooked.
What theater tome couldn’t you live without?
There are many, many books on my shelf that I couldn’t live without. I’d feel particularly lost without Daniel Gerould’s THEATRE/THEORY/THEATRE. I also have to give a shout-out to Sarah Ruhl’s 100 ESSAYS I DON’T HAVE TIME TO WRITE, and Jordan Tannahill’s THEATRE OF THE UNIMPRESSED — both were formative. And, though these aren’t strictly theatrical texts, I also find myself frequently returning to Mikhail Bakhtin’s essays on literary theory.