Last Chance! Conference Early Bird Deadline May 29

The 2012 LMDA conference is coming to Atlanta, Georgia, June 28 through July 1. Get Early Bird rates through May 29.

2012 Conference Hotel: The W Atlanta, Midtown

Stay at the official conference hotel and be in on all the action. Explore the hotel or make reservations. Deadline is May 29.

Conference Keynote Speaker: Pearl Cleage

Pearl Cleage is an Atlanta-based writer of plays and prose fiction. Her plays include A Song For Coretta, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Flyin’ West, Late Bus to Mecca, and Bourbon at the Border. Her novels include What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day, Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do, Baby Brother's Blues and Seen It All and Done the Rest. She currently serves at the Alliance Theatre as their "Artist in Dialogue," a two year residency at the theatre, where she acts as an advocate and ambassador for community dialogue and engagement. Ms. Cleage is a major artist and a prominent Atlanta “local” who can address the confluence of place and art, the role of artists as citizens and leaders in this particular community, and the cultural and racial collisions that mark the ecology of her adopted hometown. Read more »

Atlanta-based playwright
Pearl Cleage .

Don't forget: Renew Your LMDA Membership Today!

All 2011-12 LMDA Memberships expire on May 30th, so be sure to renew soon if you haven't already done so. At the Spring 2012 Board of Directors meeting, several changes in membership policy were implemented for the good of both the organization and its members. For the last twelve years, LMDA membership rates have remained at the same level. Increasing costs have led to a decision to raise those rates slightly. Starting July 1st, the Individual Member rate will increase from $60 to $75 and the Student Member rate will increase from $25 to $30. Institutional and Spotlight Sponsor member rates will remain at the current $200 and $500 respectively and will cover multiple members at a single institution. Memberships will continue to be good for one year, but instead of all memberships expiring on May 30th, memberships will now be good for one full year from the date of purchase rather than covering only the portion of a year left until May 30th. Members will also have the option of automatically renewing their memberships instead of having to go through the online or paperwork process each year. As in the past, conference attendance requires that you be a member in good standing, and only members accrue the privilege of advertising themselves professionally as affiliated with Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas. We hope that these changes will allow us to grow and develop as we continue to provide the many benefits LMDA members have come to rely on, including our dramaturg-driven grants, theatrical residencies, support for early-career dramaturgs, online publications and more. So renew today, and take advantage of the current membership rates for one more year! Renew your membership now »

Uncanny Valley, from Hand2Mouth Theatre. Supported by a 2011 LMDA Residency Grant to Kate Bredeson.

A Report from the Kennedy Center New Play Dramaturgy Intensive

From Heather Helinsky: "This April, seven aspiring dramaturgy students descended on Washington, DC to participate in the national Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival. Austin Bolay (Georgia Southern), Tierra Bonser (Emerson) Julia Chinnock-Howse (Texas State), Wendy Gourley (Utah Valley) Ann Fleming (Villanova), Angela Hunt (Univ. of Colorado Boulder) and Abigail Ropp (Northern Michigan) had workshops with Literary Managers and attended play readings from the KCACTF playwrights. This year brought a change as student dramaturgs also attended productions in the D.C. theatre scene after their daily master classes. Students began the week with Arias with a Twist at Woolly Mammoth, followed by The Whipping Man during first previews at Theatre J, and finally Michael Kahn’s four- hour production of Strange Interlude at Shakespeare Theatre Company. As Abigail Ropp noted, “Being able to discuss a show that we saw with the dramaturg that worked on the production was of immense value because we could reference the show and see how their work was being applied.”

Dramaturgs and Literary Managers who mentored the students during the week included John Baker of Woolly Mammoth, Adrien-Alice Hansel of Studio Theatre, Amrita Ramanan of Arena Stage, and Gavin Witt of CenterStage. The students also had a workshop at Woolly Mammoth with Miriam Weisfeld and Ronnie Penoi about producing Arias with a Twist. “Again, another completely different conversation about dramaturgy ensued and I was again surprised by the vastness and challenges that encompass this profession,” said Tierra Bonser, “and that each institution and aesthetic had an almost completely different way of dealing with dramaturgical challenges.”

The week wrapped up with a visit to the Folger Shakespeare Library to have their casebooks reviewed by Drew Lichtenberg of Shakespeare Theatre Company and Patrick Tuite of Catholic University. Conversations deepened with Patrick and Drew on best methods for research, play analysis, and structure. The cherry on top was a visit to the Folger Library’s vault where the dramaturgs got to peruse the quartos, folios, and promptbooks that can provide other opportunities throughout their career for scholarship. “We were given a gift,” Ann Fleming declared at the end of the week, “I was so pleased to hear that there are so many permutations of the dramaturgy profession.” Wendy Gourley agreed, “A picture of dramaturgy as diverse as the theatres themselves began to take shape. I learned too many things to list, but some of them of note are: the growing trend of connectivity, getting away from traditional ways of script analysis, look at the big picture, look for patterns, and don’t be afraid to ask the dumb questions.” Julia Chinnock-Howse felt as though she also “learned about my aesthetic once and for all.” Austin Bolay, who won the Kennedy Center scholarship to spend the summer at the O’Neill Festival, felt the tone of week, set by freelance dramaturg Heather Helinsky, their guide for the week, “didn’t make it feel like a competition. It was refreshing to have the ability to talk about our fears, concerns, and issues as aspiring professional dramaturgs” in between the sessions and shows." Read more »

Member News & Updates

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Becky Becker had the rare and wonderful opportunity to see and respond to Shakespeare's Pericles, performed by the National Theatre of Greece during the Globe to Globe Festival in London that runs through June 2012 in conjunction with the World Shakespeare Festival. Here is a link to her review on the Globe Theatre website.

John Camera. " I do the dramaturgy for many of the productions at Hunter, they seem to like the way I do research, thanks to my training under Lynn Thomson.  The most recent research task, however, was getting excruciatingly tiresome until I came across some notes and articles. The notes were about Keith Johnstone, introduced by Lynn, and the exercises he offered to early career dramaturgs, specifically on just what collaboration means and how to best do it, but also on just what an "offer" is, and perhaps most important, how to ask questions. The articles were a 1996 essay titled "Bristling with Multiple Possibilities" by Mark Bly, an interview by Lynn with Michael Bigelow Dixon, and Lynn Thomson's "Between the Lines." I immediately perked up. Their comments, ideas, and theories remain illuminating and relevant."

Lee Devin's new book, The Soul of Design: Harnessing the Power of Plot to Create Extraordinary Products, is coming out in August 2012 from Stanford University Press. "What makes the Apple iPhone cool? Bang & Olufsen and Samsung's televisions beautiful? Any of a wide variety of products and services special? The answer is not simply functionality or technology, for competitors' products are often as good.  The Soul of Design explores the uncanny power of some products to grab and hold attention—to create desire. To understand what sets a product apart in this way, authors Lee Devin and Robert Austin push past personal taste and individual response to adopt a more conceptual approach. They carefully explore the hypothesis that there is something within a "special" product that makes it—well, special. They argue that this je ne sais quoi arises from "plot"—the shape that emerges as a product or service arouses and then fulfills expectations. Marketing a special product is, then, a matter of helping its audience perceive its plot and comprehend its qualities. Devin and Austin provide keys to understanding why some products and services stand out in a crowd and how the companies that make them create these hits. Part One of the book introduces the authors' definition of plot in this context; Part Two breaks down the components needed to build a plot; Part Three describes what makes a plot coherent; Part Four takes on the challenges of making coherent products and services attractive to consumers. Part Four also presents detailed casework, which shows how innovators and makers have successfully brought special products to market. Readers will come away with a sensible and clear approach to conceiving of artful products and services. This book will help managers and designers think about engaging with plot, taking aesthetic factors into account to provide consumers with more special things."

The Dramaturgs' Network (UK) had very special guests at their monthly open forum discussion, the dn café in April. LMDA member Harriet Power and Bob Hedley facilitated a lively discussion about new drama development in the USA. During the evening held at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London (organised by Lloyd Trott and hosted by Katalin Trencsényi) the participants had a chance to see excerpts from Liverpudlian Sleeve by David Stratton-White and Any Given Monday by Bruce Graham read by RADA actors. How can we encourage the continuous exchange of contemporary plays between Britain and the Americas? How can the two organisations (the LMDA and the DN) work more closely together? - These were the most important questions raised during the evening. We hope that this event was one step towards their realisation...

Wendy Gourley was named one of the KCACTF/LMDA dramaturgs at the national festival in DC.

Sarah Lunnie. "More than a year ago, LMDA generously awarded the Telephonic Literary Union (TLU) a Dramaturg Driven Grant to support our fledgling endeavor. The ensuing months brought with them unexpected challenges: most significantly, after successful productions in the fall of 2010 and the winter of 2011, several company members relocated from Louisville to New York. Today I am very happy to announce that, after a period of dormancy in which the company reconfigured to accommodate its geographic challenges, TLU is back in action. And, thanks to LMDA and its Dramaturg Driven Grant program, we have recently extended a commission to playwright Jen Silverman. We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to LMDA for making this commission possible. Working with Jen marks an important step forward for TLU. Both of our previous projects were conceived by the company using an outside-in approach, where structures (location-based or thematic), rather than narratives, formed the germ of the production. In commissioning Jen, we have invited a playwright to work with us before we formulate a structural germ, making space for her to collaborate in that first, vital stage of conversation: not only to create content, but to conceive of a fully integrated event. By moving the playwright ever closer to the center of our work, TLU hopes to create deeper, richer and more innately telephonic stories for our audiences to enjoy. We are thrilled to work with a playwright of such high caliber, and grateful to LMDA for its generous support of our vision. On behalf of fellow company members Zach Chozten-Freund, Stowe Nelson and Rachel Paul, I thank you!"

Jules Odendahl-James. "I spent much of the past academic year in the late 19th/early 20th century, providing production dramaturgy for Duke University's productions of A Doll's House (adapted by Bryony Lavery) and Ragtime: the musical. I also continued my dramaturgical support of documentary/civic engagement projects, including The Me Too Monologues  (Duke University's Center for Race Relations), STRANGER: A Festival in Search of Hospitable Acts (with visiting company Sojourn Theatre), 8 (Playmakers Repertory Company), and iWitness: an adaptation of Mike Daisey's The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs and the controversy it created (Duke University courses THEATRST 138S, adapting non-fiction for the stage and 49S, video design for the theater). In April, 2012, I received a 2012 Outstanding Faculty Award from Duke's Center for LGBT Life and have joined the Center's Blue Devils United blog as a faculty contributor. Next year looks just as busy, with the working group -- EPA Squared: Environment/Performance/Arts + Engagement/People/Action -- which I have co-chaired with colleagues in Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment, extending our collaboration with the receipt of a Council for the Arts Grant to bring Pearl/Damour's How to Build a Forest to Duke in October 2012 for a 10-day residency/performance."

Magda Romanska just finished dramaturgy for a production of Cafe Variations, directed by Anne Bogart - a co-production of Siti Company, ArtsEmerson and Emerson Stage. Magda's two books, Post-traumatic Theatre of Grotowski and Kantor, and Plays of Boguslaw Schaeffer are scheduled to be published in August, and her humorous short story "Survivor's Guide to Socialism" was just published in the Cosmopolitan Review.

Paul Walsh has been collaborating with San Francisco's Cutting Ball Theater (www.cuttingball.com) on their year-long celebration of the centennial of the death of August Strindberg. In October-November 2012, Cutting Ball will present Walsh's translations of Strindberg's five Chamber Plays in rep (with a few opportunities to see all five plays in one day). Walsh's translations of the Chamber Plays are being published by Exit Press to coincide with their Cutting Ball premiere.