What you will find here

This site is designed to help dramaturgy students, emerging dramaturgs, and those interested in learning more about the field to understand the basics of dramaturgy. This guide also features links and reading lists to find more information. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to send me a note!

Script Analysis

Production Dramaturgy (coming soon)

This section looks at different methods for approaching script analysis, such as plot beads, scene breakdowns, and spatial analysis​. 

Research for Production

Here you will learn about different types of research a dramaturg may do for a production, including: contextual, historical, critical, and creative. 

​New Play Development (coming soon)

This page will discuss the dramaturg's role when working with a playwright on new play development at different stages, including during the writing process and when a play is produced for the first time. 

Grant Writing (coming soon)

Dramaturgy can also be a valuable resource when writing grants and developing proposals or pitches for funding bodies. This section will discuss what techniques can be best applied.

This page will go through the different ways dramaturgy can be utilized in a rehearsal process, whether it be for a typical production model (set script) or a devised or collective creation. 

Dramaturgy and the Audience

This section will discuss different methods for engaging the audience before, during, and after the performance. It will also talk about the ways dramaturgy can be used in marketing. 

Literary Management (coming soon)

Here we will talk about another role dramaturgs can take in a theatre or institution: literary management, a job which can include reviewing scripts, working with emerging playwrights, and assisting with season selection. 

Dramaturgy is "about the rhythm assemblage of settings, people, texts and things. It is concerned with the composing and orchestration of events for and in particular contexts, tracking the implications of and connective relations between materials, and shaping them to find effective forms."
~ Dr. David Williams

About Me.

Alison Bowie is a PhD in Humanities student at Concordia University focusing on the intersections between Québec theatre history, translation, dramaturgy, and memory studies. Her research, under the supervision of Dr. Louis Patrick Leroux, investigates the ways in which memory can be used as a strategy to combat forgetting in the creation and understanding of national and cultural narratives. Alison’s research is being funded by the Fonds de recherches du Québec - Société et culture and by the Faculty of Arts & Science at Concordia University. She achieved her Masters of Fine Arts degree in dramaturgy from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and her Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Queen’s University. Alison has worked in the theatre industry for over ten years as an administrator and artist. She is currently an active theatre translator and dramaturg, and works as CFO and web designer for Techne Creations Ltd. She is also currently the project manager for Professor Leroux's Circus Dramaturgy research-creation project at Concordia University.

I am not the holder of all the answers about dramaturgy - just to be clear! This resource guide started as a way to help my students better understand the field, but while I was writing it, I was asked more than once to develop articles or presentations on what all dramaturgy encompasses - so I decided it was time to put some of the information I had out there. I am passionate about theatre and my field of study. I am dedicated to the profession of teaching and this resource is one way that I can help promote dramaturgy and theatre studies at the same time. If you know of an additional resource that I have not included here, please feel free to send me an email so I can add it.