 Not till the session that follows this session. All right, so last set of questions before we move into designing the office of the future. This one revolves around the role of literary manager to dramaturg to reversal room. And how that's working, what that, what's the baby in there, what's the challenge? Who wants to start us off? Everybody's afraid to begin. I'll start us off. I find that dramaturg is an incredible resource to a playwright. What I find is that sometimes the dramaturg doesn't get activated early enough in the relationship. There's a lot of demands that are being done to the dramaturg at that time. And in many ways, the dramaturg isn't always part of the artistic talks and the talks of the artistic director, et cetera. And I would just think that I would like that I think also as playwrights we could help activate that relationship earlier by making demands that we be part of that, that person be part of the discussion from scenic design earlier on. I think the whole new play process, discussions need to start much earlier than they do. We're not even talking about getting into it. The relationship has to begin much earlier, the playwright, dramaturg, literary, office as well. Talk about that. But you're talking about the rehearsal room. I would argue that if the dramaturg has done her, his job, you should be 90 to 95% done by the time you start rehearsal because that's the director's time. And your function changes to whatever extent. And this is much more true regionally than again when I do it in New York where essentially a director is hired early on and the director historically in New York is a person who functions dramaturg. So there's less of that that happens in there. But from the old West Coast days, I think the point, John, right, is we try to be pretty much done as any kind of structural work we're doing with the playwright by the time rehearsal start because plays don't get fixed in rehearsal. What, go ahead, you. Oh, yeah, I, even though I've almost agreed with most things Jerry said, I'm not sure I agree with that. And especially, and the reason I want to say that is because I think I've been trying to parse out, you know, the disconnect between what I feel I hear about working as a literary manager, dramaturg, and what I've been hearing this weekend. I've been this kind of huge disconnect. So we were in the last breakout and we were talking about Christian came up with it and it was the thing that I think is relevant in this case, which is that one of the reasons that the person who often knows the most about the play, so in this instance, you know, I think the part that's, you know, the way the dramaturg is integral is they usually, you know, in many cases have the initial relationship with the writer. Oftentimes, they know the writer's work from the very first play they wrote, you know, and so they've been following it along. They actually know how the play sounds on the page when they read it because they know the voice of the writer. So they actually are bringing something that's integral to the process. And we were, in the breakout I was in, we were talking about that somehow that integral role is not acknowledged as integral. So what happens in the trajectory from, you know, I'm in the literary office, I'm reading plays, whoo, here I found this play. It's a writer I've been following for a long time. You know, I want to get it, so a miracle happens and that play goes to production, you know, it's the play you've been championing and the writer you've been championing. And then somewhere along the line, the dramaturg no longer is integral. And actually, one of the places I think that is, in my experience, is you get to production and actually, when you're sitting in the room, you have, I think you have a pretty good, clear sense of what that play's saying, how that play behaves. And I actually think, for a long time, you know it better than the director. And I mean, you know, or you have a version of it and maybe the director's gonna do something different, but that, it seems to me that's when the dramaturg voice is actually quite integral. And so now, I've been in enough rehearsal processes now where the director comes in, you know, the relationship has, I don't know, whatever, you know, a relationship I've been fostering, the conversation I've been having, and then, you know, I become completely invisible in that rehearsal room process. And conversations are happening that, I think, would be incredibly useful for the director to be a part of. Now, I'm working with a director who knows me and knows how to work with me, and I know how to work with them, and we all work together, that's great. But if it's the fake matches that we make where we throw a direct, of that regional thing we do where we make a, we throw a director in the room. So, I just had an experience, you know, this year at Arena where, you know, like, all of a sudden, the director wants the players to start rewriting the play, for example, and, you know, and I'm like, whoa, I don't think the play, you know, I did do the 95% of the work, I actually think the play needs rewriting, you know, in the, yeah. Let me ask, to, at what point did you meet this director prior to beginning rehearsal? No, I wasn't invited into the meeting of the director prior to beginning rehearsal. Yeah, well, no, I'm, what I'm saying is, You see what I'm saying about the lack of the rehearsal? Yeah, but I'm agreeing with Karen, in other words, if all that has happened ahead of time. Yeah. I'm saying, if you're trying to build a relationship in rehearsal, it's too late. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You need to walk in the room with that. Yeah, yeah. But I'm saying, in the institutions, oftentimes the dramaturg is not seen as integral. Oh, yeah. Do you see what I'm saying? You have gotten there, right? That's all I, that's what I was trying, they're not, they're integral here, then they're ignored, ignored, and then they get thrown in the room. Well, I'll say a couple of things around my mind, and I'm sorry, can you see them all? Yes, I was actually about to apologize for the possibility that I might not make any sense. And I just want to let people know, I did encourage some people on the circle to let us know if you can't hear us, because we had that trouble at the last table. So if we get that, it's because I've asked for that. So go for it. I have also had the experience of being, just sort of randomly assigned and having it be tragically awful, either for me or, and if it's just tragically awful for me, I don't really care that much, because if it doesn't hurt the play, then that's fine. And if I can still have the smug superiority complex, the play would've been better if everyone would've listened to me, then that's okay, as long as the play is okay, and as long as the writer's okay. It doesn't really matter to me necessarily so much at this point in my career what my place is at the table, as long as I feel like my place is at the table is what everyone needs my place at the table to be. But I also, I find actually that is becoming rarer, and I don't know if that's because I'm at a different institution now, or, and I think things were even changing at the previous institutions at which I worked, because the development process has changed for better or for worse, but I was actually at, in the organizations I've worked on new work, and at OSF this is true too, the playwrights have the decision of who their director is. And so if I have a relationship with that playwright from the day that they emailed me their script, then I'm already going to have a relationship with that director because I have the relationship with the playwright and the playwright has a relationship with the director and then I'm going to come in and it's either going to be a productive triangle or somebody has to leave, and that might be me. I think one of the things that we don't always teach young drama turks is that sometimes you don't have to be there, but sometimes you're not actually necessary, or sometimes you're necessary to the playwright in a different way outside the room than you are in. I want to come into a different place to hear, and this is maybe a little provocative, I don't know, but I was struck in the manifestos all the great ideas that came out and the kind of big vision of what the literary office could be and what its role, what the baby might be in the future. But when asked what it was that made everybody know that they made the right choice, like an example of when you knew you made the right choice for this, every person except for Amritha talked about a time when they were talking to a playwright about like a dramaturgical relationship with a playwright in a new play developing the text. And it wasn't actually in the manifestos, but it was what made people feel like they were in the right role. And is, what's up, is the rehearsal room the goal of the person in the job? Is that like, is the rest of it, it's made it sound to me like the rest of it is groundwork. I can speak to that a little bit because I'm not currently working as a dramaturg in the theater. I'm working as kind of a coach, professor, dramaturg in a relationship with nine to 12 playwrights in a graduate playwriting program all the time. So I'm constantly having those conversations and I actually hunted down and sought out this job so that I could do that as an end in itself. Now, whether that's fruitful or useful to the American theater or to the institution or to the literary office, I don't know. But that particular kind of relationship is exactly why I do what I do. I mean, it's hard, it's, you know. Which relationship is that? My relationship to a playwright. And to working through a play with a playwright. That kind of moment is exactly why I do what I do. Back to you. Again, if I haven't made this, the dramaturg is the person that has the opportunity to work with the writer before the rehearsal starts in most institutions. And if you don't take advantage of that opportunity to build a relationship, to share an understanding of the play, to work with the director as the director comes on board. And then you've got a room full of actors and they've all got contributions to make too. So the point is that there's only so much time to get done which you can do. And you're the person that has the chance to do it before all of that happens. And if you're trying to share the room with 15 people as opposed to one-on-one, you're gonna be at a disadvantage. And it's work you should have done previously that you're trying to play catch up on if you haven't done it. And in the world of, as it's currently organized, that time the previously, all that time previously. I don't think it's built into these institutions. Yeah, yeah. Right. And what people are actually doing, those of you who are doing that that are overwhelmed by this other part of the work that we've been talking about. Like the reading, the season planning, the conversation, the list that Aaron just read is what's taking people's time during the time when you would be... I think I find the opposite for myself. I find myself, I simply cannot be a rehearsal room dramaturg who sits in the rehearsal room every day. I can sit in the rehearsal room for maybe a couple of days or come for runs. But because as a literary manager, I'm a dramaturg in a one-person literary office, I can't not do literary management for six weeks or for four weeks or however long the rehearsal process is. So that's the time that I can't expect. But I can do coffee shop dramaturgie, which is the before the play starts. Or I can do Skype dramaturgie or email dramaturgie. And I find that for myself to be in the rehearsal room, I'm in the rehearsal room at times because it's the playwright who has advocated for me to come in who has said, this is the scene, Danielle, that is, they're rehearsing the scene. I don't agree with what's going on. Or this actor isn't, is this actor communicating this? Or so, it's the playwright who advocates for me to come at crucial moments. And I don't know if that's fair for the playwrights. I have to do that, but that's sort of how it works. And I think, and that's exactly, and I think every institution is different. My job now, I'm there from before the person has the idea. I'm there when they send the first draft. And I'm not necessarily, I'm actually gonna be a production dramaturg this year and then I'm gonna be a production dramaturg and next year for two shows that, I wasn't there right when the ideas happened, but I've been there to help them develop it. And I have that relationship with those people already. So that work is kind of done. Hopefully, my job now, I have a different kind of time than I had in my previous job. That when I'm actually gonna be dramaturing that show, with the exception of figuring out how the heck to get to my nephew's bar mitzvah, I will be in, that will be my job while I'm there with no other particular jobs to worry about. Which was not true previously, where I would be dramaturing two or three projects at a time in the season or the festival with all the other administrative responsibilities and that. And that I found very sort of, not actually as troubling as I thought I would, because it sort of made me have to reevaluate how essential I actually am and when I am most essential. And what my relationship is with people to the whole process and not just a 10 to six rehearsal schedule or to make sure that I could check in with people if I couldn't be there during the day. I think that's a different problem than just being assigned to people, which has also happened. When there's that play, that when the drama exploded their assignments and you get that show that you don't understand or the director is someone that you just don't have a, I don't get along with everybody and that's okay. It's like you get assigned to that director who doesn't get you or that playwright who doesn't get you of just knowing to leave is a different problem than time. It's funny, I was thinking I've worked with three of you at this table as dramaturgs and my experience has generally been that the dramaturg for me has been kind of a lifeline in the saving grace of a lot of productions. And it's not, I'm curious about why we're talking so much about the text of a play as being much bigger than what it really is in the success of a theatrical production. When we know that the success of a production is dependent on the right inflection of so many meanings and so many intelligences working together and how rough that road is. And for me, one of the most vital experiences I've had with dramaturgs and John also I've worked with here has been with them as witnesses in the room. Polly and I certainly experienced that. My last production here, because a writer alone in a rehearsal room is kind of like a damned soul, right? You just sit there and you go, I'm the kind of still photo on the wall. The rent is taking place. And you need perspective and you need help and you need help sorting out what's your thoughts, fears, and feelings with what's really there. If there's trouble, somebody who is not a playwright needs to know how that trouble is coming and help pull people back to where they need to be. So to me it's a very high, a very high importance that there is a person of that kind of theatrical intelligence that thinks all around it. And I just wonder if in America we don't give proper respect to what that is. I feel like we don't in this country understand how key that is to good art making. Well and it seems like an early build, actually that the thing that is missing from the early part is the relationship time maybe between director and dramaturg. Because I think often the playwright and director are gonna have some sort of existing relationship at this point is my sense. But not necessarily the connected doc. And actually I mean, I don't mean assistant director in the sense that we often think about assistant directors of no takers, but actually that's how I've often related to a dramaturg, understanding like, is the set functioning properly in the way that it needs to for this play to function. And that's that. I've seen directors getting more information from the 18 year old that's getting their coffee than they do from the dramaturg to the theater. I see that a lot. It's like whoever's closest to their body most of the time is where they're getting like crucial artistic feedback from. Because directors need it too. So I wish that could become healthier in theater production. Is it important in this story that we're talking about? What's the importance of it being a representative of the institution as the dramaturg? Or, I mean, there are certainly accomplished freelance dramaturgs in this room. What you're talking about, Amy, certainly I don't know about the circumstance in this particular case, whether that could have been true. But for the most part, can that witness the playwright's witness, or does it need to be an institutional witness? I thought that'd be very important. Yeah, yeah, okay. I thought that'd be very, very important because I've worked on some collaborative processes within the institution. And in those moments, it was actually the dramaturg was the person who was able to translate what we were doing to the institution and to translate to us what the institution needed from us. And also because the way that those plays are made is through a series of rehearsal rooms that then, over the course of like a year or two years, that then culminate in rehearsal for the production, that having the dramaturg, because I wasn't doing DIY theater, I didn't always have the dramaturg. And then having someone be with us through that process is, was amazing. And then to have that person be able, and also because I collaborate with so many different kinds of artists, so much to be able to tend to me and make sure that I was tending to the text, which is not something that I'm especially always tuned to, to make sure that I took responsibility for that was a real gift to me that I got from some dramaturgs that I worked with in institutions and then to be able to explain to them even though the script was not beautiful, thinking that is what it was. And because they had authority within their institution, that was really an extraordinary thing. And it was the only way that that work was able to happen. But it gets very fragmented, I think. And that's a really great instance of it. But I think there's so many demands being done on the dramaturgs that it gets very fragmented in many ways. And I also wonder if that isn't a source of tension in a way to your point about who is the dramaturg serving. In my case too, I feel that it's always been to serve the play as I understand it through the writer or the creative artist. And so that's invited into the room, and that's what I'm performing, is the service to that play, as I understand it through the playwright, and I think to your point about the witnessing a process and being able to respond outside of the room to the artist when they come and say, what did you see? And be able to respond to those questions in addition to interpreting something in the room. So it's both about the process and the play itself. And I feel dramaturgically to Eric's point about, I feel that the work that we do at New Dramatist was in seeking out that was about wanting that dynamic dialogue with artists and how that translates into a dynamic process and to be able to find a way to create processes based on a project at any stage of development was a dream in a way that was not happening within an institution at which I served as a dramaturg. It was this sort of one size fits all. And that became so evident that that was not, that was not adequate to me. That was not an adequate system in which new plays or any kind of process was able to transpire. But I think it's about serving the play. There was something earlier that someone said, and I'm sorry, I don't remember where it came from, but something about the difference between the dramaturg as focused on the play, the literary manager focused on the institution. And I don't know how you respond to that. I mean, I'm trying to get to, I'm going for this one small thing. And I realize I'm like a, I keep pulling you back into it, but this whole thing about coming out of this weekend with some sense of what it is that we want to move into. And does that, what we want to move into include this notion that there's a, that the institutional dramaturg is the primary model for how to work with new plays. I wonder what happens, for example, in that when then your play is developed in seven different places and you've got, now you're carrying all of these different relationships and opinions, what happens, as opposed to, you can go to seven institutions with the same writer and dramaturg, and a different, it seems to me that's a different. There's one play in particular, I remember, at a He-Man festival where I spent the entire pre-reversal with that writer taking out other people's notes, because he had been to six or seven different development centers and had talked to any number of artistic directors and had tried so hard to fit everything in, that we sort of, instead of putting new notes in, we were taking old notes out. And I don't think that that happens as much anymore, and I think writers themselves are getting better at choosing which notes to actually take. One of the things I'm very proud of that we're doing at OSF is that both for the season with the 500-year-old Shakespeare plays, as well as with the commissions, is making sure that the writer also has the dramaturge that they want. So Robert Schenkin is coming in with Tom Bryant. I am helping him, and Louie is helping him, and any number of people are helping him, and also help Tom, so that Tom can also show you where the bodies are buried, where the marketing department is, where the toner is, where the bathroom is, whatever it is that the institutional dramaturge does as host. So you can separate the function of host and sort of process navigator to a staff position and leave the artistic collaboration intact. Yeah, which I am greatly enjoying, which was not, I mean, I did chose the humanity festival where people came in with their own dramaturge too. I did one project where so came in with their own dramaturge. But it gets trickier, I think, when you have, and I don't know how to solve it, and I don't even know that it's necessarily a problem for other people that was just meaning to bug me, was that if somebody wants to work with somebody other than me as a dramaturge, I don't necessarily think they should be stuck with me as their dramaturge, as awesome as I am, just because I'm the one who gets the check from the theater. One of the things that we were talking about in our past breakout, and just seems to be coming up over and over, is can the dramaturge, or institutional dramaturge or literary manager advocate for the institution to remain nimble enough, which is Rachel's word, to sort of be flexible and allow a project to have what it needs, even if it's not the institution's traditional structure or staff, and how that's possible. No, just what you were saying, and back to Deborah, how you were talking about it, it seems like it is dependent on how, I don't wanna say respected, but how much authority that that person has within the institution to both advocate, like if the institution chose that project, then presumably the institution has interest in that project, and if the dramaturge was a part of that choice, then they are empowered to help advocate for what that play needs once it's within the institution's sort of boundaries, and so it can almost sort of flip places because it's solid in both places. I think it's, yeah. But then I wonder, going back to the attention, is that because I feel like, because in some places it feels like that that's, I guess it does the institution think of the dramaturge as an artistic collaborator, or is it just the bringer of the play, and then the artist will take it from there. So, yeah, that's part of that tension. Bringing around something that's being said here, which is sort of like, it's this weird, again, it's this kind of weird way that the dramaturge slash literary manager is caught in between this sort of like, creative contributor to the process, the institutional representative of something, and then the person who's also, if you're in the literary, if you're not just the resident dramaturge who's been assigned the project, which is pretty, you see that quite a bit less, I think. Usually you see somebody wearing several hats who's actually also doing the audience engagement piece with the marketing department, for example. So the other creative artists on the project, when the project comes in, they all go into the room, close the door, and work on the project. And the institutional person does, they go in and out, and sometimes it makes sense for them to go in and out, it's not that, it's more the sense of how they're perceived. And then what happens, and I know this happened to me all the time, especially at Steppenwolf was, and at the Playwright Center too, I had to run out and do this other stuff. Like it was never that I was, and we never created, there isn't a conversation happening that says, okay, when I go into the room, I'm going in, I've worked in enough theaters now when the artistic director goes into rehearsal, you don't see them very much when they're directing the play because they've gone into the room and shut the door, and there's this weird way. And I think my suspicion about that navigation is it's the thing that makes the dramaturge at risk of being less introvert. Do you know, I mean, that sort of sense of you could go there, or you could go here, or you might have just been, I mean, it's very common that the institutional dramaturge gets jobbed onto the project, that they have no history with because it came to the theater, you know? So it feels to me like that's one of the things that everyone's trying to balance. But if we're in a world where there's, we're pulled in too many directions, as a group of people all trying to do the right thing, and what we, and this could not be the world, but it felt like listening to the manifestos and then the, where's your heart, that the heart for most of the people in this room who are in the literary manager dramaturge world is actually in the relationship, in the room, close the door. That's where everybody's trying to go. Before the room, yeah. Before the room. Before the room. Okay, but it's what would lead you to be in the room when the door is closed, doing all the work that, like the focus would be the work up to the point when the door closes, you're closed on the inside of it, and then you get to stay there. What? You have access to the door. You have access to the door. But if that's the holy grail, if that's what's right, that's what we're doing, then what about all this other work? Like who does it, who does it as a first priority? Who does it as creatively and as engaged as? I think a lot of us are omnivorous. I mean, I think that, at least for myself, I couldn't do one thing all the time. And so even if, like if I look for like the emotional high point, and the emotional high point was in that conversation, that doesn't mean that I think as a dramaturge, I think one of the things that makes a dramaturge so attractive is the constant newness and the multiple projects that were judged. Like so there is something I think in the, like it's not just grunt work to do the other stuff, but you do need that stuff. You know what I mean? I think that it's about having a balance and I wouldn't want to just do one thing for myself. Yeah, it's also a priority here. This is a new play we're producing. So am I going to go read six plays off a stack and ignore the one we're doing? I mean, you have to set your priorities and get the work done on time, which again, I would advocate is take the time that's given to you early. And maybe I'm, you know, we have a particularly lucky thing in that we have respect, we have place. It's a part of our process, John, you know, in terms of what we had in South Coast. If that's not the normal practice, then it should be. And everybody should work towards that because it's the benefit of any theater to work that way. And I haven't, it's been a very long time since I felt like I have been specifically a stranger than the kind of people. It's been a very long time since I felt like I was specifically excluded from the room as much as I haven't figured out how to be useful. And some of that's on me as much as everybody else. But I'm not sure that I need to be in the room all the time. Yes, I want to be there, I want to playwright needs to be there and I want to know that I am engaged in that process. But I don't need to sit through a choreography rehearsal and watch the paint dry while they figure out like who's moving the candlestick from stage right to stage left. You know, it's like, I'll come in when they move the candlestick from stage right to stage left and say, I don't know why you're moving the candlestick from stage right to stage left. And that will actually be fine as long as it's fine with the artist I'm working with, whether it be on a new play with a writer or whether it be on a classic with a director. But it's a more mushy thing than I'm being excluded or I'm not being excluded, I mean. Wonder if it's also just about the ongoing conversation and wanting to be a part of the ongoing conversation from which then, you know, things like press releases or development copy or the other aspects that you're sometimes engaged in as a dramaturg is part of the conversation that has started with the artist that you're a part of that the artistic team is part of rather than you bring the plays and then your thank you for your contributions now go and do all these administrative things that we need done as the institution. Because my feeling is that the admin is sweeter, it's like when you know what the conversation is and with whom and that grows out of the conversations that you have with the artist, with the project, with the artistic team and then that informs and inspires things that are like a press release. I mean there's a way to be creative in a press release or to write development copy or to work with the development director because you are a liaison with the artists in the project then that becomes more, it's sweeter and more creative and more dynamic. So rather than just the sort of, I don't know that I would wanna be in the room and close the door even, you know, I love process and I love the mess of that but and that informs everything else that one might have to do that is more monitor centered or, you know. I guess it's about effectiveness too, like what, how do we get the balance right so that things are, whether it's my favorite part of the job or not my favorite part of the job, like what needs to be done and how does it get done and you're talking about priorities when we're producing a play and a new play, somebody's gotta go there and at the same time somebody's doing the press release, the content, the program and all of that at the same time is developing. I wonder how we, I don't see how it's possible to do all of those things. I guess I'm saying, I'm not sure how this office works when it goes in all those directions simultaneously and there's a chorus of one. That's right, yeah. And especially when that chorus of one is hoping that they spend the majority of the time in the relationship with the playwright about the production, even if not just the text and a lot of it, I just, I feel like that's a problem. I think it's kind of both the joy and the curse of the sprawl of literary office I mean you have, I mean as you say, you have the wonderful fact that you, being in the rehearsal room, it touches all the work that you're doing and as much as you may love, you know, that conversation that you're having with the playwright, I think dramaturgy and itself is such a feel, I mean the field itself kind of refuses to be defined and we were talking about yesterday about how every time you go into a new production you have to kind of, it's unique and you have to redefine that relationship which is again both a joy and a curse. And, but that brings people into the field that have so many different talents and so many different, I guess everyone, I think everyone loves to be in the room and but everyone also loves the different aspects like I personally, I love being in the room, I love working with the playwright but I also love working with the audience, like that is kind of something that gets me going but it's not something that is gonna get a different dramaturgy, a different dramaturgy going and it's kind of making those priorities within, I've been harping on this so I'm sorry for anyone who's been in my breakout sessions. Like as you make your priorities based off, what is the mission of your theater, what is the goal of that production that you may be working on, what is your kind of focus that you wanna do, like your responsibilities and what you're willing to do and what you're willing to let go will kind of come, kind of bubble up by itself because if I know that I want to do this, this and this and that's where I wanna put my focus, then I'm just not gonna be able to do this, this and this and as long as my institution is okay with that, as long as my playwright is okay with that. But is the form in the field, is that serving? I mean I guess this group of people, more than any group of people we've had, keeps coming back to what works for you personally and I don't mean to pick on you because you're not alone doing this at all. No, it's fine. And I find it really interesting that we keep coming back to what works for us personally in our daily work lives or in our sense of how we're contributing to the world and but I'm not sure that that's relevant. How is that relevant? But isn't that what, in the best of circumstances, isn't that what defines an institution? I mean like the team is not only a literary office of one, it's mostly an office of one, but we're in the process right now, we're crossing the $500,000 mark and so it's like okay, what do we need? And so I realize that's pathetic because I'm asking, I'm using Royal Wheat when I'm asking what do I need? But it leads from what is my day to day existence in the organization and what do I need? What am I happiest doing? So isn't, I guess this goes back to the nimble thing, but it seems like a certain institutional dramaturge might be really fine and I don't mean, I mean like both enjoy and be strong at crafting a press release and crafting a, crafting language about how the public is gonna receive the play in a way that honors that work and they may enjoy doing that whereas another might not. And so I wonder whether, doesn't the personal have a place in defining the shape of. And I trust that it does and I'm trying to get at what that place is. It's not like I'm saying I think this is all wrong, I just, I can't find my way to, what is it underneath this? And it has something to do with being intact, bringing, having joy and being inspired day to day infects the form and so we're in and unhealthy. There's a certain amount of assumptions that are made that some people don't ever discuss. I assume that when a play is picked you like it, but that might not be the case, it might be you want audience, I mean I think there's some dishonesty that comes in, not dishonesty, but certain things or I assume that we have the same vision. What I find amazing is how little communication actually happens around why you wrote this play and why this theater picked it and why this director's involved and why that drama turg is coming in. There's actually not that much conversation about, sometimes you all find yourself in a room and you all think you like the play for the same reasons and you find out two weeks in a rehearsal, you don't. I find for playwrights again and again and it just seems very simple because there's a lot of well-meaning people around and I think the drama turg is in the unique position to help question and bring these things out but there's so many other demands being made at that point but I sometimes just, I feel like you assume there's just a lot of assumptions that are not investigated and talked about every time you start over because and I think that's what things go astray a lot and I realize sometimes I've been with directors or scenic and we never talked about why I wrote the play or why they wanted to be part of this. So we're back to the humanism elements here as being needed to be embedded in this whole area, re-embedded or at least preserved. Part of the baby is the time to have these kind of humanist, humanist? I don't know if that baby has ever been so much in the picture. Maybe the baby should be born. There's no baby in this letter. That's why I have to start with you. Yes. So they have baby, I should have bathed. My big dream would be that, you know, I always thought the dramaturgy at its most active and most energized could function as sort of part of the brainstem of the theater's choices. Like many of us in the arts, our choices are sometimes driven limbically. Is that where the reptile lives? I mean, strange attractions for material that have to do with the moment or the opportunity or the star or the funding or whatever and it seems to me in dramaturgy resides memory, artistic memory, cultural memory, why we are doing what we're doing and I think any theater institution that honors that in how it implements dramaturgy within its halls is a theater that will only benefit by the overtones and the half tones and the resonance and the depth and the texture of what they do. I mean, there's no way to program those functions. You know, if everything is on the fly and theater will always be but if you value theatrical intelligence, theatrical knowledge, if you value the past, value the future and there's somebody who is smart enough to and can talk well enough to reach people and keep that awake, I think theater only flourishes with that. And then you find out the particulars of how your days work later but essentially the theaters seem to value it that within their midst, you know. The theater is beautiful and I am heartened and I want to be that dramaturgy. Yeah. I also feel though that there's, you're also making the assumption that I am the one who loved your play and wanted to do it and not just the one who was assigned to it. And that I keep going. I'm not even talking about play production, I'm just talking about the institutions, how they plan their seasons, how they talk about theater. And I am in a magnificent place right now where that actually is very true and that has not always been true, that has not always been how my artistic director sees my position within that company or my position even within my literary office. Yeah. And so it's a difficult question to untangle because it's a question for artistic directors as much as it's a question for us as to what you want from your office or your dramaturgy. And I don't make a very distinct split between literary managers and dramaturgy most of the time. So when that artistic director is hiring us, I used to have a joke that I felt like dramaturge 37. It didn't matter that it was Julie Dubner that I was just dramaturge 37. And now I'm in a position where I feel very much like it's Julie Dubner who is there. And that is not always true. It's true for you though now. Absolutely. I sing the song of OSF. Yes. Yeah, I mean, you're right. I hear a lot of what makes me happy and listen to that and the other thing. They didn't hire me to be happy. They hired me to do the best I could for a play and the best I could for a playwright if I'm a dramaturge. That's my job. And hopefully I know how to do that. And hopefully I program my time so that I will succeed at it. And we're making it a hell of a lot more complicated than it seems like it is to me. If we have proper planning, if you don't, you're screwed. If four people get in a room for the first time and four weeks later you've got a preview, then good luck. This is something that should have been going on for eight to 10 months previous. So if that hasn't happened then the institution's got a problem. They're doing it wrong. In which case the dramaturge ought to address that and bring that up. But essentially your job is to do the best you can for a playwright. That's your job. What you get at the end of the day. I think that sounds good, Jerry. Maybe the issue is that those are not the functioning kind of, I hear what you're saying Amy. And what I take from what you're saying is you wanna work in institutions where the art lives at the center and the people live, and it's like an ensemble that works around the making of the art is the heart of it and everybody is involved at the heart of it. In fact, and again this is size based in terms of institutions, but that's not actually how, I mean come on, we just worked on a project together, Karen and I just worked on a project together. It's not actually how institutions, I mean it's a whole machine that you walk into and at the heart of that machine is not necessarily art making. There's a whole lot of other stuff at the heart of that machine that comes about as a result of, and so I feel like what's interesting about, I mean yeah it'd be great if we talked for 10 months but I haven't been in an institution where anybody talks for 10 months about a product. I mean there's like, maybe there's a workshop here, maybe there's a little bit of something there but I just don't, I haven't seen that institution. I mean it seems like maybe you're living in it now which is great, maybe Manhattan Theater Club has that, but I don't think that's ubiquitous. I think people kind of get jobbed in, they get jobbed in, they get assigned Dramaturk number 37 and Director number 38 and then the Dramaturk number 37 is running around trying to be also Dramaturk number 33 and 34 on two other projects. You know what I'm saying? So I feel like that's what I hear to be the kind of soul crushing, that feels like the soul crushing part for that I hear from people is not feeling like they're a part of that and not even being able to focus in on that. Well and I guess one thing you could pull, again sorry Ginny for having you be the spur of that because it's not the hardest thing from you but the sense of being overwhelmed and off track basically, it feels a little bit off. I get, I hear this everywhere I go and I feel it in places where I work as a director that there's something off in the sense of people being aligned to their goals, their ideals themselves in these institutions that prevents a kind of productive or fertile life for the art and I'm gonna struggle to get this out but people are not where they belong. People are not where they desire to be in the process and in the institutional chain and if they're having to do work that they have to get through that dues pain so that they can get to where they're going. As an artist when I come into the relationship with the people who are disgruntled about where they are in the moment that I'm with them it's not possible to have the best experience of the art. I feel like underpinning all of that is the fact that it's like Paulie you were getting into it. Can you take off please? Yeah, that many of the institutional theaters in America are just not at the center of the mission and I feel like that's been, that's the elephant in the room in so many of these conversations and that like I actually feel like in a functional working environment people pursuing what gives them joy can be very, very productive. But if it is set up so that that is actually the only way to find a ray of light in a soul crushing environment and it's not going to work because it's going to be an additional counterproductive thing, a counterproductive problem doesn't start with the individual pursuing the joy. It starts with the economics of the American theater which is, and the fact that there's very, there's almost no institutions devoted entirely to encouraging development of truly new work for the stage. What does it take? I want to go to another possible problem, Mary. What does it take? I mean the playwrights, Gary, I mean you guys have been in this for a long time. What does it take, let's go to playwrights, for you guys, for somebody to be able to match you, to be your peer in the room as a dramaturge or what sort of training, what sort of background. I'm asking because I think one of the things that we also experienced in this world, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that the training programs right now are moving, Eric, you can speak to this. The training programs are moving people into the world with the expectation that they are now ready to sit in dialogue with a script as it's coming and to give notes and to effect the test, to effect the production, right out of the program. And is that true that you can get that from a program and come out ready to do that because it's certainly the way that people come into the organizations assuming that they're ready. So what's your experience of, I mean in terms of where does this start to be problematic? It's what Jerry is talking about, that like you're not, I don't want to hear your notes about my work until we've sat down and spent some time together. And I actually think we should go out with coffee or beer and actually like get to know each other and then we can talk about the work and then we can talk about where it came from and you can tell me what it makes you think of. And then over time we develop a relationship where actually I'm gonna trust you to calm me on all of my bullshit. But you can't do that sitting in an office like two weeks before we go into rehearsal whether you're straight out of your MFA or whether you've been working in the field for 20 years. If they don't need some money to ply one of you out. I mean seriously that's been, when it has come down to that type of, I mean we're talking about the monetary, that's been sometimes in the room or something like that. But you need to find a way to meet people. But what does the people need to have in terms of preparation, in terms of, I mean you just listed a whole bunch of daunting things about the understanding of the past and your respect and love for the past and your respect and vision for the future. I mean I'm assuming a lot of things that we're talking about is if their job qualifications are givens for people that find their way into theater. One is that you believe what you're doing is important and there's a context in which you view it. I mean it's different for every play. I mean not too embarrassing but like Aaron was great to work on my play because he's a history buff. And he knows history. I couldn't have an account. And he's right out of school. And he's right out of school. He's a baby but he's brilliant. We had fabulous conversation because he's got a hungry mind and he's well read and he's like a classical scholar. He's the right guy so it's not bad. It's just the curiosity, the love of theater and some knowledge about what it has been so you're not. So that you can solve the practical because theater's so interestingly abstract and practical so you can dialogue in that way and it's been around enough to see a train coming before you do. And it likes you very much. I train playwrights. So as to training dramaturgs, I don't. I find them. And I don't think this is as common a model. I was saying this to Aaron Carter yesterday. I think that's a model that's, maybe I'm wrong but it feels like a less common model now that there is a lot more training for dramaturgs out there. But it used to be that this was the process that you got training and playwriting and you wanted to be a playwright and for one reason or another, you were a person who was good at hearing other people's plays and responding to them and then somehow you got a job as a dramaturg and then just kind of snowballed and there you were. I think that is a fairly common thing to have happened in the past. I don't know that that's the case and but the way I find dramaturgs is the way we've been talking about it and it comes from a place of joy usually and having been not the smartest person about the play but having been the first audience member who got it, the first one who built the play in their own mind and said, I see what this is. I think I know what this is doing. Maybe I should ask. I think I know what this is doing. I'm gonna ask. Is this what this is doing? It is, I got it. That kind of spark, that kind of moment is when I go, okay, well, you know, I'm training playwrights but I've got a couple here have that spark with each other's work and I know, okay, that particular individual is valuable to an MFA program because they're gonna help the workshop table but also they may also be valuable to the American Theater in more than just what it is they put on a page as playwrights themselves. Can I ask you, can I ask you a question about that? In the last session, Alana tweeted out something about, she tweeted out something about that, somebody I think said it but she was just tweeting out that the playwright, that, you know, dramaturgy is like playwriting, it's a genius art form and I don't think she was saying that everybody was a genius. I think it was saying it's more of a DNA versus a trainable skill. And then a prominent artistic director of a large Reno Theater tweeted back, I love dramaturgy, but genius art, question mark, very few playwrights in history can be called genius, let alone dramaturgs. And so I just wonder about that, like, I mean, because I think that's kind of what you're asking, right, a little about, what is it, what's it take, what's the skill set? I mean, you could sort of say, we could locate that if we were talking about playwriting. We could, I mean, we're directing. We're directing and so I just, that's the other place we're back to when I was saying earlier, this fear of being less integral comes from, do we really know what that is? In my experience of artistic directors, you know, again, that would be very, what I would very much say I've experienced consistently. I love dramaturgy, a genius art form. You know what I mean? Like, you know, so I think that's a, I feel like that's a thing that we contend with. Disconnect between training and dramaturgy and work as a literary energy. Speaking to my own, like, I haven't had a fan dramaturgy. I had like a summer internship where I, any knowledge of literary management I got came from a summer internship, but nothing that was taught to me in a classroom about how to be a literary manager. So I think that, and I wonder if, when you speak to hearing people say, what I really wanna do is be in the rehearsal room, but I have to do all this stuff if there's something about, well, I trained to be in the rehearsal room. And now I have to do all this stuff. So I wonder if there is some disconnect that comes from there as well. And I can't speak to current MFA's and dramaturgy or dramaturgy periods, but that is sort of my experience in that. Yeah, and I guess I have a concern about the value of all that stuff and the quality of the exploration, execution of it, if the person is really trying to be over there. I don't think that's the case for everyone. And I feel like those of us who are, I mean like, obviously I love a lot of that stuff and I want to do that stuff. But I feel like that was something that we make for ourselves a lot of times instead of something that we were trained to do. And I feel like if the program wants to train freelance dramaturges who just are gonna do dramaturgy, then they need to train them to be entrepreneurs and make their own businesses. Because then they need to know how to do the business of doing that as opposed to like you want to get a job so you have to do all this. I do think there's a reason. There's a bit of that. Let's ask, go ahead. It's hard to quantify too the more abstract aspects and the idiosyncratic aspects of dramaturgy, which is, I think it's easier to point at the practical applications that a dramaturge or the contributions that a dramaturge makes to an institution. The program notes and the press releases and that's what we've now come to understand as dramaturgy rather than something that's more idiosyncratic or process-based or conversation-based or dynamic relationship to the arts and the artists. And it's harder to quantify. I think it's going back to the conversations about joy. I also feel like idiosyncrasy is part of it too and who you are as an individual and how you interface with the art and artists is of value, but it's different for each person who practices it because they're bringing a unique set of life experience to their work that's just embodied in them. But it's easier for an institution in particular to point at what is the practical applications of a dramaturge and say, that is dramaturgy. That's why I love dramaturgy because look at these great program notes and look at these great terms of phrases that have come up, but the more the abstract and the process step is harder to put value on even though it's incredibly valuable, it's harder to put value on it. We're at time and we've kind of talked about this for another hour and we're not having a breakout on this particular topic, but let's let it infuse what we're talking about as we move into now. What are the things that need to move forward as the literary office of the future? Get it all the way into the rehearsal room, if we can. All right, can we? Well, just to start off with what was laying here and what Paulie said just terrifies me. If people in the room here are being dramaturged 37, change that, you haven't got a chance to succeed if that's how you're doing business. So the best thing you can do for your institution or people who've hired you is to let them know that I can't do my job unless I have enough time to meet with the writer who hasn't taken care of us for me. If nothing else comes out of that, that would be a good thing, but that's a dramaturge. There's other stairs. A manifesto. Yeah, no, I mean, there are certain, when the play lab kind of stuff, you get stacked into that. When I was doing Sundance, you would have a dramaturge working on four projects and they're not gonna love them all, but there was enough of a community there to sustain it and you weren't producing a play. So it was a short-term thing that we are producing a play.