Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation in Contemporary Dramaturgy

Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation in Contemporary Dramaturgy offers fresh perspectives on how dramaturgs can support a production beyond rigid disciplinary expectations about what information and ideas are useful and how they should be shared. The sixteen contributors to this volume offer personal windows into dramaturgy practice, encouraging theater practitioners, students, and general theater-lovers to imagine themselves as dramaturgs newly inspired by the encounters and enquiries that are the juice of contemporary theater. Each case study is written by a dramaturg whose body of work explores important issues of race, cultural equity, and culturally-specific practices within a wide range of conventions, venues, and communities. The contributors demonstrate the unique capacity of their craft to straddle the ravine between stage and stalls, intention and impact. By unpacking, in the most up-to-date ways, the central question of "Why this play, at this time, for this audience?," this collection provides valuable insights and dramaturgy tools for scholars and students of Dramaturgy, Directing, and Theater Studies.

Philippa Kelly is Resident Dramaturg for the California Shakespeare Theater; Professor and Chair of English at the California Jazz Conservatory; Adjunct Professor at the University of California, Berkeley; and Visiting Senior Fellow at the University of New South Wales in Australia. Amrita Ramanan is the Director of Literary Development and Dramaturgy at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and a Board Member for the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas. She was previously an Artistic Associate and Literary Manager at Arena Stage for five seasons.

Preface: Philippa Kelly; Acknowledgements: Philippa Kelly and Amrita Ramanan; Introduction: Philippa Kelly: Dramaturgy in Motion; Section one: permission to speak; 1 Faedra Chatard Carpenter: Deconstructing Our Perspectives on Casting: An "Inter-Article" with Hana S. Sharif; 2 Scott Horstein: Dramaturgy as Prophecy: Facing Our Truth and Dramaturging the Predominantly White Institution; 3 Awele Makeba: the dramaturgy of the classroom; Section two: taking up positions - playwright/dramaturg; 4 Martine Kei Green-Rogers: The Dramaturgy of Black Culture: The Court Theatre's Productions of August Wilson's Century Cycle; 5 Izumi Ashizawa, with Ajuawak Kapashesit embodied dramaturgy: the development of the indigenous play, the patron saint of the lost children.; 6 Finn Lefevre: The Name (isn't a) Game: New Explorations in Trans Applied Theatre; 7 Julie Felise Dubiner: Translation and Form; Section three: who's "at the table"?; 8 Jonathan Meth: crossing the line; 9 Tim Collingwood: depth perception: re-thinking social roles, staging aspergers from the inside.; 10 Annalisa Dias: Decolonizing Equity and Inclusion - Strategies for Resisting White Supremacy.; 11 Mei Ann Teo: dramaturging revolution: diana Oh's {my lingerie play} 2017: the concert and call to arms!!!!!!!!! the final installation.; Section four: cultural landscapes, past, present and future.; 12 Walter Byongsok Chon: The stakes of expanding a cultural landscape: dramaturging, adapting and performing Gao Xingjian's The Other Shore; 13 Michael M. Chemers: VISIT TO A ZOOT PLANET: USC SUITS UP IN 2017; 14 Mark Bly: the dramaturgical impulse: or how big is your universe?; 15 Philippa Kelly: epilogue; Authors' Biographical details and contact information