Dramaturgy is the study of how plays are written and how their main parts are shown on stage. A dramaturg who works with text helps bring the many different parts of a play to life during a production. They use information from the script, the playwright, the time and place when the play was written, and the time and place when it is performed. Their job is to support the director and playwright, especially if these people are not familiar with the culture of the play.

The word "dramaturgy" first appeared in a book called Hamburg Dramaturgy (1767–69) by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Lessing wrote this collection of essays about drama while working as the first dramaturg at the Hamburg National Theatre under Abel Seyler. Dramaturgy is different from writing plays or directing, though one person may do all three. Some playwrights combine writing and dramaturgy when creating a play. Others work with a specialist, called a dramaturg, to prepare a play for the stage.

Dramaturgy can also be described as changing a story so it can be performed on stage. It gives a performance a clear structure and foundation. A dramaturg often changes a story to match current trends by using references to different cultures, history, themes, and issues like gender and race in the way the story is told.

History

The practice of dramaturgy, which involves both creating and guiding theatrical works, was first introduced by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in the 18th century. He worked at the Hamburg Theater, where his role was called a "dramaturge." Lessing was the first person in Europe to hold this position. He described his job as that of a "dramatic judge," someone who evaluates the best ways to stage plays. At the time, Germany was not a single country but a group of smaller regions. Lessing was hired to help build a strong German artistic culture at a newly created national theater. Though he worked there for only two years, Lessing helped shape the future of dramaturgy. Between 1767 and 1770, he wrote a series of critical essays called Hamburg Dramaturgy. These writings examined and explained the state of German theater, making Lessing the founder of modern dramaturgy.

After Lessing’s Hamburg Dramaturgy and Laokoon, as well as Hegel’s Aesthetics (1835–38), many later writers, including Friedrich Hölderlin, Johann von Goethe, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Thornton Wilder, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams, explored how plays use language as an art form.

In 1863, German playwright Gustav Freytag wrote The Technique of the Drama, which outlined the structure of plays, including the rise and fall of tension in a story, known as "Freytag’s Pyramid." This book influenced early Hollywood screenwriting guides. In 1915, Charlton Andrews wrote The Technique of Play Writing, which discussed European and German traditions of dramaturgy and how plays are constructed.

These examples show how theatrical traditions have developed over time.

One of the earliest works in Western theater theory is Poetics by Aristotle, written around 335 BCE. This book analyzes the genre of tragedy. Aristotle believed that Oedipus Rex (written around 429 BCE) was the best example of a dramatic work. He studied how characters, actions, and dialogue work together, provided examples of strong storylines, and discussed how the audience’s emotions affect the form of a play. His ideas are now called "Aristotelian drama." Poetics explains key ideas from Greek drama, such as the moment of recognition in a story (anagnorisis) and the emotional release of pity and fear (catharsis).

Poetics is the oldest surviving Western work about theater. The oldest non-Western work on dramaturgy is likely the Sanskrit text Nātya Shāstra (The Art of Theatre), written between 500 BCE and 500 CE. It is believed to have been written by multiple people, with the main ideas compiled by the playwright Bharata. This work describes the elements, forms, and stories of ten types of ancient Indian plays. One important idea in the Nātya Shāstra is bhaavas, which are the emotions actors express. There are 33 bhaavas listed, such as love, fear, and excitement. These emotions are meant to create rasa, a feeling experienced by the audience that is different from real-life emotions. The word rasa is hard to translate into English, but it represents the unique emotional experience of watching a play. The term rasa first appeared in the Nātya Shāstra.

A major development after Aristotelian dramaturgy was the creation of Epic theatre by the 20th-century German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Brecht introduced ideas like the "estrangement effect" (Verfremdungseffekt) and the acting style called gestus. These were deliberate changes to challenge the traditions of Aristotle’s ideas.

Practice

Dramaturgy is the study of the background and setting of a play. A dramaturge gathers information about the physical, social, political, and economic conditions where the story happens. They also examine how characters think and feel, the themes shown through symbols and metaphors in the play, and the writing style, such as how the play is structured, its rhythm, and the words used.

Institutional dramaturges may help with different parts of a play’s production. They might assist in choosing actors, give feedback during rehearsals, and share information about a play’s history and why it matters today. In America, this work is sometimes called Production Dramaturgy. These dramaturges may collect information about a play’s background, write program notes, lead discussions after a play ends, or create guides for schools and groups. These tasks help directors combine text analysis, acting advice, and historical research into a production.

In the early 2000s, dramaturgy began to include drametrics, a method using math and computers to study plays. This approach was introduced by Magda Romanska in 2014. Drametrics uses tools like charts and network analysis to find patterns in plays, such as how characters interact or how the story moves. While traditional dramaturgy focuses on reading and interpreting plays closely, drametrics adds new ways to understand plays by using digital tools, especially when studying many plays or comparing them.

Copyright

Dramaturgy is a term that can be understood in different ways, and the role of a dramaturge may change depending on the production. Because of this, copyright rules related to dramaturgy in the United States are not clearly defined.

In 1996, there was a discussion about whether a dramaturge could own part of a production. This question came up in a case involving the estate of Jonathan Larson, the writer of the musical Rent, and Lynn Thomson, the dramaturge for the production. Thomson claimed she was a co-author of the work and said she had not given up her rights. She asked the court to recognize her as a co-author and to give her 16 percent of the money earned from the show. Even though she made her claim after the show became a Broadway success, similar situations had happened before. For example, 15 percent of the royalties from Angels in America went to the dramaturge of playwright Tony Kushner.

On June 19, 1998, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit agreed with the first court’s decision. It ruled that Thomson was not a co-author of Rent and was not owed royalties. The case was later resolved without going to court again. Thomson received an amount of money that was not made public after she said she would remove her work from the production if she did not get it.