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Musical Theatre, Creative Producing and the Business of Dramaturgy with Ken Cerniglia
118 Plays1 year ago
On this episode Amber talks with Ken Cerniglia about the dramaturgy of Musical Theatre, Creative Producing and finally, the Business of being a Dramaturg. With years of experience in making Musicals for Disney, Ken has spent his career in Dramaturgy. Now as a full time freelance dramaturg, he has developed some exciting tools for negotiating contracts and pay. Listen now to hear about how he builds a process for a musical, how he leads by serving and how he negotiates his pay on behalf of all artists.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:06
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Thank you for tuning in to Table Work, How New Plays Get Made. My name is Amber Bradshaw, and I'm a new play dramaturg, arts administrator and educator. On this podcast, we ask some questions. What is new play dramaturgy and how do we do it? What do artists want to see in the future of the American theater? And where are we failing in the creative process and how can we solve these concerns?
00:00:31
Speaker
This podcast is brought to you by Working Title Playwrights, a new play incubator and service organization based in Atlanta, Georgia, in which I serve as the managing artistic director.
Value of Dramaturgy and Integrity
00:00:40
Speaker
For more about WTP and me, check out WorkingTitlePlaywrights.com. I just want to remind all dramaturgs that because we may be in certain circumstances, the newest theatrical specialty in the room are on the block.
00:00:57
Speaker
that it can't be devalued. It has to come in with integrity and value and deserving of payment. And if you're testing something out, just do a limited part of your professional work first.
Ken Chernelia's Journey and Experiences
00:01:11
Speaker
Well, Hey, Ken, thank you so much for joining us. I'm really excited to have you on the podcast. It really is an honor. Everyone, I would like to welcome Ken Chernelia to the podcast. It is so great to have you and I just want to allow you to introduce yourself to our listeners.
00:01:29
Speaker
Well, thank you for having me. Um, I'm also a big fan of the podcast. So now I get to be on it. Well, I've learned so much. So yes, Ken Chenilia, I'm a full time freelance dramaturg.
00:01:42
Speaker
which I have been since I left an institutional gig in late 2019. I worked for 16 years as a resident dramaturg for Disney theatrical productions after some time in academia and regional theater. But along the way, I stayed active as a freelancer. So I had side projects, even though I had an institutional gig for a really long time. And I'm very grateful for the opportunity of having met a lot of people along the way. And so when I decided to make the leap,
00:02:11
Speaker
to freelancing full-time, I had enough projects to work on.
00:02:17
Speaker
So I'm primarily these days, not that I ever had any planning, but 20 years ago this week I moved to New York City for this job at Disney. And I had had a little bit of experience performing and directing a little bit, musical theater, but really no experience in musical theater dramaturgy per se in terms of new work. I'd worked on a couple of new work things.
00:02:42
Speaker
But then over the course of working there, I developed an expertise in musical theater, because those are the projects that I had to work on. And then also a commercial space, what it takes to put on a show of commercially bigger productions. But I also work on small things, tiny site-specific things that my little theater company produced that
00:03:04
Speaker
I love the classics, and so I have a pretty broad net when it comes to the projects that I'm interested in. Bilingual theater is also a love of mine. But yeah, I primarily am a musical theater dramaturg, and since I left Disney, I've also started writing them. So I do both things now. So my time's about half split between writing and half split with dramaturging. Although I never can take my dramaturg hat off. It just never comes off. It's a permanent hat.
00:03:33
Speaker
But I'm also like bringing on dramaturgs when I'm writing, so I'm not also doing that. I do feel that separate function is important. That's amazing, and congratulations on the playwriting. That's awesome. Thank you. I love that when a dramaturg starts writing. Yeah, yeah. It was interesting when you think about that, and it's not like I didn't have the skill, but maybe I didn't know what I wanted to say in the form of a drama.
00:04:02
Speaker
But I was like, got very good at helping other people say what they wanted to say, but didn't necessarily feel the call to write myself until a couple projects came my way. And I felt like,
Leadership and Community Impact
00:04:14
Speaker
oh, I have a perspective on that. I have something I want to say through that. And that's a reason to write. But I didn't necessarily have that banging down my door before. And then here I am, you know, mid-career, mid-life. And I was like, oh.
00:04:27
Speaker
Maybe I do have something to say. I would say that this way, and that's when you should write. I love that. That's great. Just for listeners, we met in 2017 at the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas Conference, LMDA, which if you've listened to this podcast, you've heard me mention many, many times, which can of course, you were the president of LMDA at the time. Thank you for your service. It was a volunteer position, folks. Thank you for your service.
00:04:56
Speaker
It was an amazing conference. It was an art and equity conference and you brought in Carmen Morgan and the art equity team to do training with us and we really got into some incredible work and it really changed the course of my leadership and I ended up bringing Carmen Morgan and art equity to Atlanta and training artists here so it was quite impactful for me.
00:05:19
Speaker
I always like to give you a shout out, so I'd like to do that publicly as well. Thank you for that conference. Thanks. I'm quite proud of that conference and also you mentioned leadership. I've been interested in that since I was a kid.
00:05:35
Speaker
student council and grade school. Like I've always been interested in leadership and leadership positions, but through a lens of service, right? Like where, how do you serve the community? When does the leader need to do something? And so that was,
00:05:50
Speaker
When I had an opportunity then, once I was in a field that I'd specialized and then had an opportunity to lead the organization, it was my predecessor, Beth Glickers, who's a dramaturge and agent extraordinaire, and invited me to consider that. And it was really that invitation to be like, oh, am I ready?
00:06:08
Speaker
Can I do that and then and then that a leap of faith into a fire? No, but it was but it was great. Like I had I not had the opportunity my sense of the field grew my sense of like meeting more people like you like amazing collaborators from all across the country a continent around the world and That I think definitely
Serving Artists and Organizational Insights
00:06:33
Speaker
my whole sense of dramaturgy is also somehow inextricably connected to thoughts of leadership and surveys. So that's a little bit there. They're related.
00:06:47
Speaker
Hmm, for sure. I do think so. And I, when I teach my intensive, my to play dramaturgy intensive, I talk about, you know, this is a leadership that is in service to others. And so I very much resonate with that and agree with you on that. But I think also as we serve artists, we just have to really be thinking compassionately about what they need in these spaces where they're taking a lot of risks and being really vulnerable.
00:07:12
Speaker
And I think that so, you know, if you've been in leadership positions, anything that, you know, requires leadership, it is thinking outside of oneself and be like, what, what is this system kind of need?
00:07:25
Speaker
And I think that's very dramaturgical, right? It's sort of looking at like, what is the system of the play? How is it structured? And what does it need? And how can I help? So that from you are just sort of like two sides of a coin. I think running an organization and helping to run a room or create a room where new work can happen are very similar.
00:07:49
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I so agree. And that was my first LMDA conference, so it really made an impact on me. If you're a dramaturg and you haven't been to LMDA, definitely get there, folks. Agreed. Agreed. I still, I love it. I think it is. And the way that we describe, we're the beehive, it's our tribe, it's the thing, but it's also just, it's community.
00:08:11
Speaker
And people who are trying to do the thing that you're trying to do and finding that incredible support, but also challenge, you know, because it's a group of really curious, really, you know, smart and engaged and compassionate people who are also incredibly loving and supportive of one another. I found that like I got my first conference was in 1999. I was still in grad school.
00:08:39
Speaker
And, you know, I was there super intimidated. I went to my first one at University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. So it was just like driving down from Seattle where I was going to graduate school. But then, you know, amazing people like Jeff Proll. It's like coming under his wing.
00:08:54
Speaker
And John Wilson, who was teaching at Cornish College of the Arts, my dramaturgy connections actually gave me my first jobs, like teaching jobs in their departments. And then, honestly, I went to another LMDA conference in 2003, and someone who had a great gunter, who I'd worked with at Lilia Playhouse, and I was in the box office, and he was literary manager. I was like, I was working for Disney. He's like, hey, I moved to New York. I have an open position for an associate dramaturg. You should apply. But that came from the LMDA conference.
00:09:24
Speaker
and a direct and personal invitation. So like my whole career has been because of connections at LNDA.
00:09:31
Speaker
and that community. And that's not why I did it. I did it because I'm a dramaturg, and that's what I'm supposed to do. But it also had side benefits, which is some employment and invitations to grow and learn and do new things. And so again, I would second what I ever said. And if you're listening to this and you haven't engaged with LNVA yet, you can do so virtually and also in person. And our next conference is in Kansas City next summer.
00:09:59
Speaker
Yes, thank you for that. And you're still involved with LMDA, right? You're on one of the... I'm on the board. Got it. I'm on the board. And the thing that I'm spending a lot of time on is on expanding our employment tools, our employment guidelines and sample contracts. I'm in the middle right now, like finishing touches on the first draft of a new commercial contract for New York for not maternity, which we've never had.
00:10:24
Speaker
But we're getting very close to that being quite good. So I'm happy about that. Because, you know, a lot of dramaturgs, they don't know in their employment situations, like, what to do first, what to do next? How do I advocate for myself? I'm not somehow like, well, maybe this is something that needs to be my project, because what we're talking about in terms of leadership, dramaturgy, like,
00:10:44
Speaker
Well, I should be the one working on this, or one of many who are working on this, because I get it. I want to see how we fit in the ecosystem, what's equitable practice in terms of labor and compensation, and just making sure we're in the right conversations with our peers so that when we get into a room that labor and compensation is equitable.
00:11:04
Speaker
for all involved, not just us, right? For our peers, who are directors, who are actors, who are designers, who are dramatists, who are doing all the things they all want to be treated fairly and equitably. And that comes with like some advocacy on the behalf of dramaturgs too, because of our sort of initial need to nurture, support at the service of someone else. It doesn't mean we shouldn't be paid, right?
00:11:28
Speaker
So, yeah, that's also one of my projects besides my other creative ones. I put some creativity into contracts.
00:11:37
Speaker
Well, thanks for that work. I know that's also volunteer work that you're doing, and it's really important. I get a lot of questions about stuff like that, and I often am like, LMDAs working on some stuff. You know, I tell people what I do, but honestly, it's so needed. So thank you for contributing that. That's really important. Sure. Happy to. I'm going to try and do it. So go to the website, and if you join LMDAs, then you can have...
00:11:59
Speaker
Access to our employment tools and there's new stuff going up all the time So you're not alone and these are hard questions But we do have some answers there for you and also some coaching if you need it and happy to do that Yeah, it's so hard for artists to talk about money Yeah, and it's like we just got to do it and we got to get comfortable with it and there's our resources like the resources and there are standards and we're just trying to Improve them make them clearer and also I think make it
00:12:29
Speaker
make it attractive and clear for people who want to work with dramaturgs, right? Like some, I don't want us to stand in our own way. It's like, Oh, someone want to work for you. What are your rates? So like, what should be the thing? And I'm like, no, we've got some standards. You can do what you choose, but learn what our best practice is now and how they're getting
Functions of a New Play Dramaturg
00:12:46
Speaker
better. So that when you enter into a collaboration with someone in an agreement, you know, whether employment or some other
00:12:54
Speaker
situation that you're advocating for yourself, but also for all of us every time you engage in a collaboration. So I found that it's for me to know like, oh, this is not just for me. This is for all of us. If I succeed in making this clear and good value, that's also what I'm trying to deliver to when I'm in a room and you know, you're paying me or we're all engaging in it. I want my presence and my labor and my creative contributions to
00:13:24
Speaker
speak with value for my collaborators, my employers, my producers, so that if there is an outlay of money, which I need to pay my rent, that's also perceived as a good investment in the project as money well spent. I'm very interested in value. That's great. And also I feel like it's to the point, you're talking also about dramaturgs needing to advocate for
00:13:46
Speaker
not just our value, but our presence being needed in the space, all of that, right? All of that. So thank you for that, for sure. So I'd love to ask you a little bit about what you feel like the new play dramaturg's function is in the spaces that you work in. And obviously you work in a lot of different kinds of spaces, but you work in spaces that are moving into production often. And so I'd love to hear some of how you look at the function of the new play dramaturg, where you're at right now.
00:14:16
Speaker
Yeah, and I like to wear different hats in that respect. I'd like to, I'm interested in creating spaces and timelines and schedules to then enable the best work possible.
00:14:32
Speaker
and curate conversations at ideal times to push that work along, to also create opportunities for discovery that I don't know what the discovery is going to be. I just know we need to create a space for one. And to be able to, some of my biggest satisfaction now comes out of creating those rooms and spaces and timelines, and to getting to know players in a room
00:15:01
Speaker
and what's going on and what the desires are and to really particularly since I work a lot in mostly in musical theater we're talking like many people many stakeholders often more than one author on a piece so many dramatists
00:15:16
Speaker
you know, composers, librettes, lyricists. Can I interrupt really quick? Could you share like a, because I've been learning about this and I feel like people don't know the amount of like maybe composers or just people that would be on the musical team potentially. I didn't realize what this looks like. I think it's really amazing. Sure. Sure. Absolutely. So, you know, I think although there are many permutations of it for a book musical, ideally you have a book writer, a composer, and a lyricist.
00:15:46
Speaker
So three people working on a show. Now, on the music team beyond the dramatists, and you may have like a songwriter who's composing and writing lyrics, or also n-writing book, which is the case of like Lin-Manuel Miranda for Hamilton and A.S. Mitchell for Hadestown. Like that can happen. It's hard, but it can happen and it can be
Creative Producing and Collaboration
00:16:09
Speaker
successful. But more often than not, you're dealing with multiple writers.
00:16:13
Speaker
on, you know, each with sort of an expertise in an area of book writing, of lyric writing, and composing music, composing songs of the score. In addition, because you asked about the music team, for a musical, then you'll have someone who's the music supervisor, who's essentially can also be working as a, you have to have like vocal arrangements.
00:16:34
Speaker
You have to have orchestrations. You've also got to hire your music team. So when you've got a musical in a room, and then you've got your musical director who will be teaching the music to the actors and then often conducting in performance. And that may not be the musical supervisor who's looking at big pictures. So your music team can start to become 10 people just to deliver the music. Someone is the copyist.
00:17:00
Speaker
So taking the music that's written and putting it into a score on a page, and then there's changes, and then so those have to be put in, and everything's got to be synced up. There are programs that do that. So it's quite big. It's quite big. You've got a lot of stakeholders in there. But at least initially, when you're creating new work, the stakeholders would be the people writing it. So one, two, three, maybe there's more. It gets a little clunky if you've got more than five writers on a musical. Three is good, three or fewer, maybe four.
00:17:30
Speaker
And then often, because you talked about production, that unless you don't have a producer yet, that you'll be working kind of on your own if you're writing, but then I also advocate getting a director on board as soon as possible, who knows about development. So they can be complex. I've not had enough experience in developing musical theater, but I'm now often hired to help run that room.
00:17:56
Speaker
We have the great benefit of Disney of having an institution who developed musical theater and other people who know how to do it. But most of the time in musical theater, they're all individual projects. Not a big organization that's developing stuff from its own catalog and adapting it into musicals. You've got someone new with an idea that may be adapted from source materials so it gets optioned. But then it is this small group of people that then has to then build it over time.
00:18:26
Speaker
And so part of my dramaturgical work now is doing that creative producing, at least initially, until you get a producer on board or maybe work with a producer. You get a producer from one of my projects who like actually doesn't yet know very much about musicals.
00:18:41
Speaker
So I'm having to articulate a little bit, and I'm a writer on this. So I was like, OK, here's what we need next, right? We're going to need this thing, and we have to do this thing comes next. And we have to get this person on board. We need a music arranger because we're doing catalog musical. But it's big, but I love it. I love it. I know who the players are. I know how to build things. And so I was like, oh, that's not something I knew 20 years ago, but I do know it now. And that's where I can wear my dramaturgy and my
00:19:11
Speaker
Knowledge Base has expanded, so I can help build something almost with sort of a producer hat on. Not having to go out, raise the money, find the theater
Resource Management and Efficiency
00:19:22
Speaker
kind of thing. How do I build as a creative producer the creative process and the spaces that are required to get the work to be good and at the right level, and also to get producers not to spend money too soon? Don't spend money on that workshop or that developmental production when this thing is not yet good on paper.
00:19:41
Speaker
Like we have work to do first, then spend the money. They're like, let's just read it around the table with some people. We don't have to teach all this off. Then we'll learn from that. We can do this on Zoom, cause even less. We don't have to rent a room, right? So those are the sorts of things that I now know now about development process where I like to help curate that or at least be part of the conversation because I like to be efficient. I don't want anyone to waste their money.
00:20:07
Speaker
our making's hard enough and it's hard enough to raise money to do the next thing. It was like, well, spend the money in the right places. I'd rather have you not waste it on a thing and a rental when you could just pay artists more and we'll do this better. Absolutely. I think that's often what is so lacking is efficiency and effectiveness in a lot of the spaces of new play development.
00:20:31
Speaker
Yeah. And I think both of those things, efficiency and effectiveness. Because you'll have other producers who will kind of be on the opposite end of like, you know, obviously wanting to save money, right? And I get that, but then cutting corners. And I was like, this is not a corner to cut, because this is where we need to spend the money here.
00:20:52
Speaker
So some of what I'm doing is like, well, if you hire me, I will ultimately save you money because I'll show you not where to waste it. And that's where the value comes in. I'll also add to the process, but I'll help you avoid some million dollar mistakes, which are just wasting money. Don't do that. Don't do that. It won't help you. It won't add value. Don't do it.
00:21:11
Speaker
Fantastic. Okay. So I have like lots of questions for you, but I'm wondering if this one would be a fun place to start. So if you, let's say you were approached by somebody to do this, create a room or build a new play development space for a musical, could you give me sort of a template for how you might explain what that would look like to someone who might want to hire you, or maybe an example based on a project you've worked on recently?
00:21:37
Speaker
Yeah, and I've been working on several. So I've had some producers, you know, come to me and sometimes... Like, what are the ingredients, right? And like, what are the... You mentioned space, timeline, schedule, curating conversations at ideal times and creating opportunities for discovery. All those I loved and I'm super interested. Like, what does that look like? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think also time and who's already at the table, who's missing from the table.
00:22:06
Speaker
at what point in the development process. But I also kind of like, I know what some options are for, you know, more ideal, efficient and effective creative spaces, but I need to know who the players are because that will determine what's needed.
00:22:22
Speaker
And so sometimes when I come on to a new project, sometimes the producer's like, I think we need some job training. Like, yeah, cause the movie's not working, right? But it may not be the play. It may be your process. So what I'll do first is I will, I got like, well, I don't do this work, but you can send me the script, but I won't look at it until I talk to the writers. So like, I have to talk to the writers. I have to see like, what do you want to do? What's going on here? You know, what excites you? What's getting in your way? If there's a director on board, I'm like, I have to do the director.
00:22:53
Speaker
And then I'll see where we're at and what needs to come next. So some of what I do is just like a little bit of consulting. I do like assessments of sort of musicals where they're at, but they come with these interviews because I'm like, I need to know the players. I need to know like where you're at. And then I can come back to you with some recommendations, mostly around process of like what needs to come next, who you're missing from your, you know, table.
00:23:18
Speaker
Um, and where, where you might go next and sort of finding that. But I do think that you need, you need, you need time in a room and it can happen. It can happen on zoom because I had to, and we all had to learn how to do that. If we did not do that already, um, during shutdown.
00:23:36
Speaker
But now that we can get together in person, also with being efficiency-minded, if people live in different places, when do you want to incur that expense? Someone's got to travel and get to a new place. If you live in the same city, it's much easier to find a space to get together.
00:23:53
Speaker
But I do think that kind of dedicated space I found from myself, even though, like, yes, I can work on multiple projects at once more recently when I've had that carved out space. And I think anyone will tell you this in terms of new work. That's what we have, writer's retreats. That's what we have. It's so we can shut out the other things for enough time
00:24:14
Speaker
whether for ourselves or with our collaborators to be in a room together for enough time with enough structure, not just in the room, like, oh, we'll just throw them in a room together for a week and they'll come out with like a new draft of music. How is that time structured? Like, what are the goals and what are you doing here? And at a certain point, you know, whether I'm assessing musical or part of a team, I have like a list of questions.
00:24:40
Speaker
that are about like, what's our one pager? Like, what is this show about? Where are we here? Where are you here? Where are you invested in it? What's hot for you? What's exciting for you?
00:24:50
Speaker
And also, particularly in musical theater, I'm like, where does it fit, right? Like this, you know, as complicated as a canon is and like what's in and what's out, there is a canon. There are other things there in this world that people will automatically refer to in the space of musical theater. You can't live in a vacuum. This is like this, right? Like these are iconic things out there in the world of musical theater. So I'm building a lot of that scaffolding. Whose shoulders do we stand on and who are we in conversation with?
00:25:21
Speaker
And this can't be ignorant about that. Because as soon as we're out there, we're going to get compared with everything that's similar. So we have to be actively in conversation with someone about that. So I'd like to have, once we have enough people in the room, are the writers assembled? Now we have a director. Great. And we have a producer. Let's have this conversation. What are we doing here? And to develop this one pager, this description in a one line, this is what our musical is. And it can change over time.
00:25:51
Speaker
If we want to change it and we pivot, I often find when I enter a room of musical theater because there's so many stakeholders that I came into a project fairly recently and I was like, oh my God, everyone's on a different page. Everyone answered this question differently. So let's stop here and have this conversation before we do another draft, right? Like if you're all writing or you're producing and directing different shows, you're never going to get off the ground.
00:26:20
Speaker
So that's what I do most of the time, is to try to get everyone in the same canoe, in the same river, paddling in the same direction. Because even then, it's hard. But it's hard with compounded obstacles if you don't even have that. So what is that room? And what does that look like? And when do you have that conversation? And when do you come back to that conversation about that? And then some of it's just, frankly, deadlines.
00:26:48
Speaker
So I'm always being like looking at the calendar when we do something and like, when's our next thing? And can we hold that time now before it gets taken up? Because you could have the next thing you need to do, the next chapter of a book, the next outline, the next song thing. But if there's not a deadline, it's not like that time will get sucked up. And this is really hard work. And it requires a lot of collaborators and a timeline.
00:27:13
Speaker
that I'm quite aware of. So it's that balancing of like that sort of practicality of a schedule and time and time in a room together. What can we do on our own? What do we need to do back in a room together? And to see like how slow things can be when they're fragmented. And then what if we actually do have everyone in town for that week, we can get a lot done if we're ready for it.
00:27:33
Speaker
so that what are those spaces and who are in those rooms? Sometimes it just needs to be the writers, the writer, the dramaturg, the director, or just the writers. I'm gonna close this door and you're gonna talk this out. And when they come back in two hours, we're gonna have another conversation.
00:27:49
Speaker
Because sometimes those conversations need to happen and like they're not going to happen in a room that's full of actors and company managers and other people in design. I'm like, this is not a group discussion at this point. This is not everybody throwing your ideas in because you have a knot.
00:28:06
Speaker
enough ideas here among the people who are going to make the make the decision in terms of what's on paper. So those sorts of things and sometimes it's like, yeah, is there a template, which is what you asked? You know, there is, but it's quite malleable.
00:28:22
Speaker
You know, there are things that need to happen. I don't know in what order they necessarily go in, but I've got tools in the toolkit and these things like this room here, this room there, this Zoom conversation, that thing. One of the things I feel fairly confident in now, not that I always know that answer, but I'm good at curating process. I'm good now at reading the needs of the people in the room and having a really pretty darn good idea on what probably the next thing we need is.
00:28:52
Speaker
Not like what the answer is in terms of the thing, but what the answer is in terms of the next step in the process. What conversation needs to happen next to get to the thing, to get to the answer, or to fix the thing that's perceived to be not quite right yet.
00:29:09
Speaker
That's great. Thank you so much for that. Does that make sense? That makes a lot of sense. I mean, I do a lot of similar things with my work, but what I love is that it sounds like you are part of the beginning of a lot of these processes, right? And that's part of just how these Broadway musicals work, right? Whereas a lot of the time, in my experience, the new play Dramaturg is brought in kind of later in the process.
00:29:36
Speaker
And so some of the process work has already been done, right? So what I love is that you're being approached to begin and follow through the process, which is amazing because that's sort of, to me, that's really ideal because you can start and be like, okay, well,
00:29:55
Speaker
let's sit down and talk about what this idea is, right? And so that to me is amazing because it's like, well, this is the mission. This is the idea. This is the mission. Here it is right here. So you start with that, right? And then you work from there. And then I could imagine, you know,
00:30:11
Speaker
If you've got 20 people on a development team, that's going to have to be a Zoom meeting. There's going to be a lot of Zoom meetings with all those people who are not always going to be able to make it. Just the amount of curating and facilitating process, like you're saying, is a lot of what I do and what people come to me for is similar. What's the template for this workshop? What do you usually do? I will tell them, well, here's what we usually do.
00:30:40
Speaker
And here's when we usually do rehearsal and you can do it that way or you can change it. How do you work? What is best for you? And then we will alter what this workshop is to make that what you need, right? But I can tell them what I know works or what has worked before, right? And so I have templates for them.
00:30:59
Speaker
And even with our feedback sessions, I say, you don't have to do feedback if you don't want to do feedback. You can do feedback, but it needs to be moderated. If it's moderated, here's some recommended rules of engagement. You don't have to follow these, but here's some basic guidelines, things like that. So there's all these sort of guides and templates, but they're meant to be very adaptable, which I hear you saying the same thing. It's like you can't know until you get there and whatever step is very specific.
00:31:28
Speaker
which I think is just sort of validating a lot of what other dramaturgs have said on the podcast about this work is that it's kind of like we're at the end of rehearsal and you look at the playwright and the director and you go, okay, what are we doing? What are we thinking? What's happening?
00:31:43
Speaker
What do you need tomorrow? Not like, what do you need in a week? Like, what do you need now? And that's what we focus on. So it sounds similar on a much bigger scale for this Broadway musical template. Yeah. And also, I mean, the other thing to think about is we're talking like not a template for two weeks. We're talking like seven years. Very long time.
Early Involvement in Projects
00:32:07
Speaker
So we can go into a workshop.
00:32:10
Speaker
know, and if I'm on the team, right? So like, I've also been a festival dramaturg too. And so you go in one day, you sort of meet people, but it's all sort of focused on like, they come in and you're festival dramaturg, you meet them like, great, I'm just meeting you now. But like, let's see what we can do. What do you need here? And so I got pretty used to doing that on the fly quickly, later down the line with that kind of work. I was like,
00:32:32
Speaker
Could I get the draft like a month in advance and read it and meet the writers in advance so I could help them plan? What do we want to do in these weeks versus just like meet me on day one and we're done on Saturday. I don't know if I'm that effective with that limited amount of time. Can I get a little more lead time so that I come in as ready as everyone else?
00:32:58
Speaker
And then we can have like, all right, we've got this amount of time. And then I'd ask like, I don't have to make the decisions. That's what I love about being a dramaturgist. I'm the suggestor, you're the decider. But let me suggest some things about process. Yes. And because I'm like, let's it with the goal of sort of effectiveness and efficiency. Now, so that's just sort of special denominatorian way I asked for sort of more times. And like, it's iterative, right? Like new work is iterative.
00:33:24
Speaker
But yes, so I'm interested in those longer term iterative conversations. So is that conversation with the artist at the end of the day? If I don't grab you now, do I need to call you later? You know, because if we're under the time pressure, because other people in the room, actors are in the room, other things, they were just us. That work goes on in between. So I'll talk about it. We want to get there in terms of the compensation, right? Like there's the time I spent in the room as a dramaturg. And there's all the time I spent in between when we convened in a room.
00:33:53
Speaker
And if that may take into consideration, we're talking about my job here. But I can do a lot of work in between, but I just need to have the opportunity to have that connection with artists in between and to be tapping into this thing and that. Because I feel like so much of new work, yes, it happens in the room and on a deadline, but so much of it happens on the back burner while we're focused on other things.
00:34:15
Speaker
How do we keep, you know, what do we put in that big pot on the back burner? What is the stock that we're simmering over time? How do we keep feeding it? So it is cooking. So the next time we come back in a room, it's been doing its own work on the back burner. And so they're like, Oh, but we need this now we need something. No, actually, you need time in between. That's important.
00:34:38
Speaker
Development creative time is the time in between deadlines is the time in between workshops It's the time in between this production and that production is that fallow period, you know to use the farming reference Like we'll rotate some crops. You need the fallow season. We're like nothing's in there it needs to take a break and then we'll come back to it fresh and See what we find there and I'm not afraid of that
00:35:05
Speaker
I'm not afraid of that because I've seen it do so much productive work is the break, the time off. We become
Dynamics in New Play Development
00:35:11
Speaker
different because these things take so long. And so when I'm advising producers, you know, and sometimes also to in musicals who is calling the shots can be different people. So, you know, with a playwright and an original work that work belongs to is owned by the playwright, right? It's original work owned by the playwright. That's the person who calls the shots.
00:35:35
Speaker
There are other projects that maybe start with a producer who has either an ID or has options, some source material. So then that producer is the one who calls the shots. They then commission the writers to write the thing.
00:35:51
Speaker
you know, and then the agreement is like, if it's not working out, then that person can, they can part ways and find someone else to write it. Like a dramatist always, what they write specifically belongs to them, but if the underlying source material is, they can take it home, but if the underlying source material belongs, they can do anything with it because the option belongs to someone else. So, so who's calling the shots, you know, often in new play dramaturgy, we're often dealing with writers who are writing original things that then they own.
00:36:21
Speaker
Right? That they're being adapted from material that's either in public domain or that they've optioned themselves. If that's a possible thing, you know, an adaptation of a novel, say like for children's work, that can happen. But then they're calling the shots. Like who ultimately makes a decision at the end of the day? Well, it's a playwright. Playwright gets to say, what is that on stage? And then, but in musical theater, it's often not that way.
00:36:46
Speaker
There are other things at play, like a producer can't tell a dramatist what to write, but a producer can, if they commission the artist, could change artists if it's not working. The producer can, if it's original work, the producer can always decide not to produce the play. The producer always has that choice. So if a producer's like, I really think this should change, the dramatist's like, no,
00:37:13
Speaker
the producer has the lever of saying, I'm not producing your work. That's a lever to pull. So these are these conversations where like, oh, it's got to be a collaboration in terms of what are these needs. And that's why I like to have these conversations. I'm like, are we all working on the same project here? So it doesn't blow up down the line. And we find it's not like anyone didn't do their job. Well, it's that you had misaligned assumptions from the beginning.
00:37:41
Speaker
about what was happening here. I can help make that conversation one. And that's what I'm always
00:37:47
Speaker
advocating when we're getting to decision-making time, we need to have one conversation. So all the stakeholders need to be involved in one conversation. You can't be having separate conversations. It needs to be one conversation. Can we have one conversation? And that, I feel, is really important. And we're dramaturgy. Who are the stakeholders? Your dramatist, your producer, your director. Who else is the stakeholder? Is there underlying source material? Is there an estate you're dealing with that also gets to pull the plug? Who are the stakeholders? Who get a veto?
00:38:17
Speaker
That needs to be one conversation. And so I found I'm pretty good at it, and I get employed to curate those conversations so that things move forward. I'm not always successful, but at least I'm like, if I can get the process right, then you can decide if you're having an honest conversation if you just want to do different things. Then you can recognize that and be like, you know what? This isn't working. Not blaming anyone. We just don't want to do the same thing.
00:38:45
Speaker
And you can walk away. And that's fine, but at least then you have the conversation. And so many projects, I think artistic collaborations can fall apart because you didn't even get to the point of having the conversation about why isn't this working? It's giving yourselves the opportunity to have a conversation because maybe it'd be like, oh, I thought you wanted this. I wanted that. But like, oh, now that I know you want this, I can do that. I just didn't know, right? Like it could be that simple in resolving a conflict of assumptions.
00:39:10
Speaker
And then sometimes it's more complicated than that, and it's actually a non-starter. It's a deal breaker, but you have to have a conversation. And someone's like, oh, oh no, that thing you want? Oh, I don't want to do that. You should get someone else. I will step away. That's not for me. And I've seen that happen too with a lot of grace and compassion, and that can be productive too.
00:39:32
Speaker
Yeah,
Handling Collaborations and Conflicts
00:39:33
Speaker
that's great. Thank you for sharing that. I feel like there's just a huge part of what you're describing as facilitating communication, facilitating the collaboration of the process. Here's what we all need. Here's what we're all doing here. The intentionality of the process and the mission of the process I always find for me is really key as well.
00:39:54
Speaker
And that having these conversations is something a lot of people don't like doing, but it's so necessary. And if you can get it done ahead of time, you can really avoid some major harm, right?
00:40:08
Speaker
Yes. Yes. And it can be harm, which is different from discomfort. But yes, it can be harm. And no one wants that, right? No one wants to make theater in a place where people get harmed. So I think everyone would be in favor of that. So here's a process. These are conversations we can have at the right time to avoid harm and to be respectful and also to know that something can
00:40:34
Speaker
that a collaboration can end without being finished, and that can be fruitful. It's like a relationship can end. A divorce can happen that can be mutually beneficial and loving.
00:40:48
Speaker
It's not the failure, it's just sort of the recognition of an ending. And let's be good to each other as we end this thing. And I think that can happen in artistic projects too, where you just sort of part ways. And not that it's not difficult, but it could be the necessary thing. And I think that that's something, once I learn that lesson, that's something that's been super useful for me. And so when I enter into any new collaboration,
00:41:16
Speaker
I'm like, hey, let's do this first part. It'll be like paid dating. And then we can enter into a long-term collaboration. But always recognize there may come a point in process where we're not working on the same project anymore. And let's find some sort of off-ramps that are
00:41:34
Speaker
respectful and that maintain people's integrity and that for a change in personnel to happen or someone new on a project doesn't mean that everything has to light up in fireworks. It can just be a recognition of like, this is not good for me anymore, or I'm not good for the projects.
00:41:56
Speaker
And it can be like, you know, and you can grieve it. Those are all things, but that's part of the process too. And then like, all right, pick yourself up the next day. Who's next? What are we looking at? What do you want the thing to do? And once I absorbed that, dealing with grief, I think, in particularly long-term creative processes, I was less afraid of it. And so when it comes, I'm like, I can recognize it, be sad about it, but also know there are ways to deal with it or work through it.
00:42:25
Speaker
And that's okay too. And I think to have that out in an agreement at the outset means if things should go south, we've already pre-gamed a process of an exit strategy for it. And that recognition and that respect for one another that you're always free to leave the room if it's not working for you. And that we're also just making a play. Let us always remember that. Then I think it gets really fun.
00:42:55
Speaker
because then we've already worked through that. We've aligned our assumptions. We have check-in points to make sure they're still aligned or if they're misaligned, make a change. And then it can be so fun because now we're talking about now we've got like a nest, we've got a schedule, we've got spaces, and then a kind of trust that we can build in the room that I will trust my collaborators to tell me what they need when they need it.
00:43:20
Speaker
Otherwise, we're going to plow forward and check in on each other to remind ourselves to say what we need. But then it gets so fun. I've had recent experiences where we just have a really well-planned two days. And then at the end of it, it's fire, right? So many good things are happening. I have this thing and there's like, I mean, it's like, there's not room for more notes for the fire. I had to go on to the next stage.
00:43:48
Speaker
for you on the podcast. I'm opening up a script and showing it.
00:43:53
Speaker
My video got my script of like all my excitement from this last, but that's because we've created a room where there's trust. We know what's going on. We know what the next thing is. And then it's just so fun. It's the fun thing about making theater and collaborating is the fire of discovery and the next thing and solving structural problems and like finding this new thing. Like, oh my gosh, that's so much better. That just gave me chills. Like those moments.
00:44:21
Speaker
They're like, oh yeah, that's it. That's when we're making new work. And that's exciting. And so what are the spaces that we can create to have those experiences? I love that. And I also hear we have to do the part that's a little uncomfortable to get to the part that's really fun, right? Which is, of course, sounds like a therapist, but you know, that's not the first time we've ever talked about new play dramaturgs in therapy. Like it's a thing.
00:44:49
Speaker
Because we're dealing with human beings and humans will have all these crazy ways of responding to conflict, right? And so how do we deal with that if we talk through what our boundaries are and what our access needs are and how we process and know ourselves enough to do that, right? Because that's that's a challenge too, right?
00:45:08
Speaker
Then you can get to the part where you can just collaborate successfully without freaking out about a conflict that might arise because you've worked through some of it and you know where the boundaries are. And sometimes I would say I've had experiences where artists didn't really know how to set their boundaries. And so in part of the process of working with them, it was like, well, what are these and how can we investigate what they are?
00:45:34
Speaker
And that became part of my role as the dramaturg was to help them figure out what the boundaries were, right? And so I think that's something that we do for artists. Well, how do you observe yourself and how do you process and
00:45:49
Speaker
what about your observation is what you're bringing into the space and what you know. And so I thank you for that. It's like a really clear delineation of get the hard stuff out of the way. So everything can be really fun. That's why I think agreements are so important. It's to just say if something goes south, like who owns what? What is it being like you want to take your toys and go home? What is the plan for that? Talk through it first. Know what that is. And it's just empowering.
00:46:17
Speaker
So then instead of the unknown, and then to be surprised by it when conflict will arise, as it will in any collaboration, but to not have any tools to deal with it when it does. So it's like, get those tools first, iron those things out first, figure that out first, and then you can have more fun.
Compensation and Value in Dramaturgy
00:46:35
Speaker
Because you've got the backup plan, you know? Yeah, that's great. Thank you for that.
00:46:43
Speaker
Well, something else that I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about is something I know you've been working in a lot, which is compensation for dramaturgs. And obviously, you know, you're working on Broadway, but you're also working in other parts of the theater. So I just want to point that out to listeners. And will you just tell me a little bit about what you're sort of learning and what you're putting together and how you've developed that work for yourself?
00:47:08
Speaker
Sure, sure. So I think there have been employment guidelines from LMDA for the past couple of decades and a couple of iterations. And we voted in 1999 not to form a union for a lot of reasons, mostly because they're an international organization and unions are domestically based.
00:47:27
Speaker
but also because people were working in a lot of different situations. And there's something that we prize in, in dramaturgy, which is like a lot of flexibility and new frontiers. And to start to codify that in terms of a union and collective bargaining, which is also any kind of collective bargaining is inherently antagonistic.
00:47:46
Speaker
So because it's labor and management, and they get split. And we're dealing with this with our cousins in film and TV right now. So there's benefits, obviously, to collective bargaining and fair. But I still have questions about, is the system working? Because I'm not quite sure it is. Not that I'm anti-union, quite pro-union. So what we're doing in this is that we're essentially a guild.
00:48:11
Speaker
So we have collective, we have collective interests in play, we can offer some best practices. And I find like there are many playwrights, producers, others who want to hire dramaturg. So in the ways in which we can say like, this is what the job is, these are ways in which these are kinds of things we can do. These are the scales of compensation, at least for minimums, right?
00:48:34
Speaker
and recommendations, and then the individual can negotiate from there. And I think, look, if we collectively agree that here are some standards and collectively refer to them, that has the benefits of unionization. So I would say, if someone wants to hire a dramaturg, yeah, the thing is they could always not hire a dramaturg. But I believe that the value of hiring a dramaturg is always saving time and money, ultimately.
00:49:03
Speaker
So it is an investment in saving its time, money, and quality. That's a great point. So I don't think that if we sort of hold to that or identify jobs that are below the standards and like not take them, that helps up the standards. And we can just be like, no, this is what it is. You want to hire a dramaturg, like these are the minimums, this is the thing. So I'm doing more of that work. And it's been done before, but we're getting even better. And we're doing it in coordination.
00:49:31
Speaker
with, at least in the U.S., of very much in coordination with our sister guilds and unions. So what does a dramatist go to recommend? What is it I ought to recommend for designers? What does STC recommend for our director? Because I think primarily we're in the world of the 40s. So the dramatist, the director, the designer, and the dramaturg. And those are closest. And so the ways in which we are compensated need to live in the same ecosystem.
00:49:59
Speaker
And that will be a little bit different depending on the union or what the payments are and where they go but a general manager producer Hiring us should recognize the things that were asked asking for they're tailored to the specialty we bring to the table that are also in lines of the same buckets of compensation and sort of similar pay schedules of compensation as our colleagues so it's not this thing that's on another planet and
00:50:24
Speaker
that you don't have to explain to and no one understands. And it's not we're making, trying to make it as clear as possible and recognizable as possible. So it's not like this, like, what do dramaturgs even do? No, no, this is what we're doing. And it delivers value. And I know that now from experience, if you can be in a room and you're good in the room and you're creating process and you're adding value to the work, other people recognize it, including the people who are playing you.
00:50:50
Speaker
So I'm not worried about that part of it, but I am worried about us all getting educated on the ways in which we should ask for compensation and what are our practices and how do we keep track of our hours and when do we cap them? And they're like, well, this is all we have to pay. I'm like, well, this is how much you'll get, right? Like it can be scalable, but I'm not going to work all these other hours because that's what I would do if all the time was mine, but it's not, right? Like I need to make dinner. I need to like have a life.
00:51:17
Speaker
So as the work of dramaturgy is infinitely expandable, you need to put a cap on it. And we're going to be like, how many hours am I in the other room? How many hours outside the room? What is that going to be? Then this is what the fee will be. And so one of the, one of the insights I've had recommended by another dramaturg who works this way, but folding it into a potential larger agreement is the time outside of the room, particularly for long-term projects of working on
00:51:46
Speaker
a retainer that's sort of tied to amount of hours. But we should also get paid in the room when everyone else shows up, when the director shows up, when the actors show up. And I'm there too. I will get paid like they do. So we'll all be on the same payment schedule. I'll get paid the same. But I'm also doing work outside the room.
00:52:06
Speaker
and in between readings and workshops. So that needs to get paid in a different way. And that I'm working on this retainer model of like, great, we don't know how long development is going to be, but, you know, I'll work on a retainer. I'll make myself available for this amount of hours for this project, monthly, quarterly, you can negotiate that. But that's how I get compensated and you pay me their thing and I'll give you up to this amount of hours. I will keep track of them. I'll tell you what they are.
00:52:33
Speaker
And it's not a thing invented the blue. Lawyers work this way. Other workers work this way. I'm not gonna, I have charged in the past for sort of like development for like a flat fee. And then just see that it goes away because this thing is taking years. And I'm like, wait, I'm never gonna get paid again. And I don't know when this thing will open. So now I'm just dumping a bunch of hours in because I signed this thing and I never thought that through.
00:52:58
Speaker
because it's comparing it to another thing. I'm like, no, no, no, they need another system here. So then if I'm on a retainer model and the thing takes longer and I'm still putting new work into it, or if I'm working on a show and all of a sudden it has a new book writer, and I'm going to start over in a collaboration.
00:53:14
Speaker
You have to keep paying me, right? Like, if I can still work on this, happy to, you know, but I'm not gonna like, all of a sudden, because you have a new book, right? I'm not gonna start over. And your one-time fee you paid me at the beginning is now gonna like, keep me going. I'm like, no, no, that's, who agreed to that? I did. That was stupid. I'm not gonna do it again. So it's that. It's really getting a bigger understanding of the work, of the variety of the work. And finally, this was the missing piece of the puzzle for me. Like, how do I get paid for the in-between?
00:53:43
Speaker
And I think this is it. I think this retainer model is the way to do it because then it could be, and if a project gets put on hold, the retainer can be put on hold. It's very flexible on the producer's end, the employer's end, but then it's like if the work keeps continuing and I'm still
00:54:00
Speaker
curating those rooms, supporting all the artists. I'm often, you know, I'm often dramaturging the producer's work too. Like making these, you know, decisions like, well, what should be the next step? What theater should we be looking at? What, you know, those kinds of things. I'm like, well, I know, I can tell you, you know, or this, so let's create a new model. You know, I'm fine to be doing all that advising work. I'm going to be getting compensated for it.
00:54:23
Speaker
So I also just hear you're, you're very good at explaining what you're able to do in the room, you know, and like the value of what you do in the room. So I just want to encourage listeners to hear that and see how they can learn to value.
00:54:39
Speaker
themselves in the room and what they bring. I think a lot of times artists suffer from insecurities and a lot of things that hold us back from seeing our value, but we all have it and it's all there. If we can look at it that way and go, yeah, my time spent on this is important. My time is valuable.
00:55:03
Speaker
And I think so often artists are asked to work for free, right? And I think it's key to remember if you're an artist who often works for free that you are setting a standard, right? And the standard is that you'll work for free and that's what your value is, right? So I think we just need to put that out there, right? Because if we're willing to work for free, what we're saying is the value of our work is zero, right? It's kind of like,
00:55:34
Speaker
I have people talk to me a lot about free events. They're like, well, if the event is free, what is it worth? Right. Um, there's concepts around what things cost and what things are worth. And it's a lot of philosophy when it really comes down to it. But as artists, like we really do need to let people know our value. Right. And we, it starts with us. It really does start with us. And I'm always trying to give.
00:56:02
Speaker
playwrights and dramaturgs, the agency and the empowerment to stand up for themselves and know that they're worth something. So it's really wonderful to hear you talk about this stuff and share it. Thank you so much. Yes. And thank you for opening up a conversation because I do think it's important for us to talk about. And I'm open to working for free on a project.
00:56:29
Speaker
if everyone on the project is working for free. So what I say is like, if other people are getting paid and some people come up to you like, well, they've never worked with a dramaturg before. So I figured like, if I just do this one for free, then they'll know the value of it. I'm like, no, if you do that for free, then they'll know it's worth nothing. Exactly. So do not do that. And so now you, what you could do if you're, if someone's like, well, maybe you want to work with a dramaturg, what do you want to do? I'm like, we'll work on a limited basis. So say like, Hey, for this, maybe like I'll do a note for your program.
00:56:59
Speaker
for this much money. I mean, you work on, you know, in your lobby or if it's a new play thing, like I'll work for this amount of hours and like, you don't have the budget for it. Like, great, this is my rate. I'll give you a discount. This just so you know. So if you do work for free, donate your hours or work at a, you know, at a sliding scale that they know your full rate. So it's where, right? Like just put that out there. I'm working for going on a project I love right now.
00:57:26
Speaker
for other reasons. And I tell them, no, obviously I add value to my work. But I'm working for free intentionally here. And the producer's like, no, I want to pay you. No, I'm doing this pro bono. And this is why. It's an educational project.
00:57:41
Speaker
But yeah, so I'm like, no, no, you can absolutely work for free. I worked on projects that are highly professional. Everyone got paid the same stipend, which was essentially paid not even for a coffee, right? But the agreement was clear when we went into it. We're all bringing it. It was a new opera that I helped develop and I ended up
00:58:02
Speaker
I think directing that are in a couple of projects. So here's the deal. We're all making the same. It's not enough. No one can pay their bills from this. But we're going to go do this. We're going to have rehearsals here. We're going to go down. We're going to travel. Get this done. The project budget covers travel accommodations, a little bit of money, a tiny stipend. It's going to be great. We're going to have a great time. But this is not paying you your work, right? This is a stipend. But we're all agreeing to do it because we want to do really good work.
00:58:31
Speaker
we all want to do it together. You can do those. What is the project budget? Who else is getting paid? Dramatrix should always be paid equitably and it can be on various levels. I'm not going to go into a project and charge my full rates. Nobody else is getting that. I just need to know where we're at in a certain thing. But what I just want to
00:58:54
Speaker
I just want to remind all dramaturgs that because we may be in certain circumstances, the newest theatrical specialty in the room or on the block, that it can be devalued. It has to come in with integrity and value and deserving of
Ensuring Fair Compensation for Contributors
00:59:09
Speaker
payment. And if you're testing something out, just do a limited part of your professional work first.
00:59:14
Speaker
to them, show them, because like, well, we don't have the money yet, right? Like, well, I'm not going to give it to you for a break. I mean, you'll never know what the value is. Like, this is what I, this is my rate per hour. This is what I do for this sort of thing. And so like, they're like, why can't pay that? Well, if you could pay this, then this is what I can do for that amount of money.
00:59:32
Speaker
And I'll happily do it, right? But I'm not going to do other things for free. When I know your director is getting paid, I know your actors are getting paid, I know you as an administrator are getting paid, I'm not going to do my professional work in this environment and not in an equitable compensation way.
00:59:50
Speaker
I also encourage people to trade if they can as dramaturgs. It's so easy to trade, right? You can do that sometimes. I'll read your play, you read mine, I'll show, I'll come to your reading, give you feedback. Like artists can do that stuff with each other all the time and often don't even think about it.
01:00:06
Speaker
Oh, sure. Absolutely. I love this too. I love to tell people, well, here's my discounted rate. Here's what I'd like to make. But yeah, I think it's so key. What I hear that's most important is the balance and the equity in the room. Equity in the room. Nobody is getting paid. Everybody needs to be getting paid that amount. It's something that we're pretty strict about with working title. We pay the playwrights as well. And we just sort of have this, well, everyone's going to make this amount.
01:00:34
Speaker
you know, whether you're the stage directions reader or an actor, you're making the same amount. Yeah, because everyone in that room is a contributor and everybody has value, right? And everyone's in that room for basically the same amount of time not doing something else.
01:00:49
Speaker
Exactly. That's the time. Exactly. It's the time. Yeah. No, no, no. It's definitely that. And the only other thing I'd add, like just for this intro to the compensation is to think about, and then the model when we're ready to share it, it'll be available soon. It's to think about like, what is dramaturge are we offering? So time, right? So you can think about time in terms of like time you spend on something.
01:01:13
Speaker
a particular amount of labor and expertise, which has value, which is a little bit easier to calibrate when you're in the room. And then the last thing, and this is really important because of the relationship of dramaturgs and dramatists, dramatists own the copyright on their work.
01:01:32
Speaker
the work of the dramaturgs does not venture into writing, which would be venturing into copyright territory. That does not mean, however, that we do not make creative contributions. Right? We make creative contributions that aren't types of copyright. So it doesn't mean like we will own our creative contributions. That will ultimately be executed and owned by the dramatists. But we have made a contribution
01:01:58
Speaker
And that doesn't mean that can't be compensated, just because we haven't written it. So there's also the creative compensation. Yes, the compensation for the creative contribution to the work. And that also needs to be brought into mind, depending on what's the thing you're working on, how long have you been working on it, the credit associated with that over time. So just think about that in the back of your mind, too, that I can put a lot of time and energy. And yes, I'm in the room.
01:02:27
Speaker
Yes, I've maybe created the space for them. But then I've also participated in the conversations about developing the work in the spaces that I've created for that. And I've contributed to it. And that should also be compensated. How is that compensated? And that's part of the whole ecosystem of hopefully a soup to nuts of looking at developing a new work and how long you're with it.
01:02:51
Speaker
Yeah, fairness. That's amazing. Thank you so much, Ken. It's really refreshing to hear you talk about this stuff. I feel like this, this kind of dramaturgy is very much needed. So thank you for this.
Ken's Current Projects and Musical Interests
01:03:04
Speaker
And I finally wanted to give you a chance to let our listeners know how they might be able to keep up with you. If you have any new projects coming up that you want to plug.
01:03:14
Speaker
Oh, I have many. The most exciting ones right now are at least the most recent on my mind. One is if you want to follow a project I've been working on for about seven years. It's a new musical, it's a new world, a new myth called Atlantis.
01:03:29
Speaker
with my collaborators Matthew Lee Robinson and Scott Morris directed by Kristin Hanke. Matthew Lee Robinson's a songwriter, brilliant. The dramaturgy of world building. And this is really like sort of a fantasy story of the last three days before Atlantis disappeared forever. What were they doing? What did they talk about? What was the life there? So we've been just working on this world building that's kind of epic, but also about like,
01:03:53
Speaker
ecology, existence, civilization, isolation, why are we here, you know, kind of like big epic and drawing a lot of inspiration from early mythologies too. So that's been pretty fun and I like being in that space and in that room.
01:04:10
Speaker
I'm pretty excited about it. So that's one thing you could follow. And then I'm working on this new catalog musical. It's called Little Canyon. It's based on Michael Walker's book for your friends. And he wrote this book in 2006, which is the history of the neighborhood, when groups like Crosby, Stills and Nash, Joni Mitchell, the Mamas and the Papas, they were all neighbors in this neighborhood in LA. And they made some pretty amazing music in the late 60s and early 70s.
01:04:39
Speaker
And so we're creating a musical that's a little bit about them and a little bit about artists now who make a pilgrimage to Little Canyon to see what was in the water. And then they get possessed by this house, and then they go back in time and relive some of these original things that have happened and how these songs got made. But I really love it. I grew up in LA with this music that my parents listened to.
01:05:03
Speaker
So it's a really special project for me to spend time in a new world and collaborate on that. And then I'm thoroughly enjoying working with just some new folks who reach out, like on things that I won't be part of a team, but to look at a new musical, to do, you know, a sort of a read of it and have a conversation with someone. So I'm really enjoying getting to meet new artists and sort of like a one and done dramaturgical consultation on their work.
01:05:30
Speaker
which I find really fun and just meeting people at all different stages of career and all different backgrounds. And so I try to, as much as I can say like projects take seven years, 10 years, the ones that you commit to. I do like being a tourist sometimes as a dramaturg on other people's work and sort of come in and be a festival dramaturg. I'll just be part of it for this little bit of time or I'll be a consultant on your work and then like go with it. Best of luck to you. Like I'm not going to be on your team, but I like to come visit your land for a little bit.
01:05:59
Speaker
If I can have some insight into what you're doing that you find useful and nurtures your process and project, then great. And I love to do that too. So I do a few consultations on that level. And then sometimes I like to teach. I like to visit classes and do guest artist residencies and visit people either in Zoom or in person. And that's something I thought I was going to do. I got a doctorate in theater history. I thought I was going to be a theater professor.
01:06:25
Speaker
But I didn't, you know, my my career took me and opportunities took me into industry and actually creating and making the new work, which I love. And I use all my education all the time. You know, I thought I was going to be a teacher. So I have opportunity to go and teach. I love to do that. Very quite fond of it. So I love that. I have one totally random question before we close out. And that is, what are your top favorite three musicals?
01:06:51
Speaker
ones that I haven't worked on, right? I mean, whatever you want to share, it doesn't happen to me. Oh, no, no. Yeah, I will still go to see Hadestown because I love it. And we've got new casting in on Broadway. It's like in my other own town, California, in San Francisco right now on tour. So yes, still quite fond of it. I really love what David Lindsay and Bear did with his play, Kimberly Akimbo.
01:07:18
Speaker
and working with collaborator Gene Tassori to create this new musical that won the Tony this past year. It's really lovely. I saw it at the Atlantic Theatre Company last year, and I was like, oh, this is great. Victoria Clarke is starring in it. She's one of my favorite musical theatre performers. And it's quite great. And it's still running on Broadway. So if you have to come to New York, please go see that. It's a chamber musical. It's small. It's a really sweet story. And it's really winning.
01:07:45
Speaker
It's perfect. Jessica Stone directed it. It's a great cast and I brought tons of friends to it. So of other people's work, I like it. There's that. And I have to say, like, I really, there's an import last season from, from the UK, which is and Juliet, which is like, what if Juliet didn't die? And it's so much fun. It's so smart. And I loved it way more than I thought I would.
01:08:09
Speaker
Because I'm like, I don't know, is this gonna be for me? And it was for me. Because they have like this young love story, but then they have like mature love stories of William Shakespeare and his wife that are sort of like the relationships on the rock. What if she were to write the ending to the new play? It's so good. And it's so funny. And it's so sweet and surprising. And yeah, I'm like, oh, that's well done.
01:08:32
Speaker
This is one way to use existing music at the service of a really smart story, a really smart premise, and it's really fun. And it's reaching a multi-generational audience in a way that I didn't expect. And I'm like, oh, nailed it. Well done. Well done to you. I'm good. And then there's a Kander and Ebb music hall.
01:08:52
Speaker
that Susan Stroman directed here on Broadway, and it did not run long enough, but it's one of my favorite shows called The Scottsboro Boys. It's not a historical, very sad episode, but it was beautifully written and beautifully directed, and that's one of my favorite shows. It's one of my favorite experiences.
01:09:09
Speaker
in the theater. So those are three. Look at that. I did it. I can never answer this question. But I just did it for you. Totally threw that at you. But I was curious after our conversation, I was like, I think this is something folks might want to know. Well, that's amazing. Thank you. And those all sound like really different. Yeah, I definitely have a eclectic taste. So I will go see anything. I mean, I feel like- The serious stuff, the giddy stuff.
01:09:38
Speaker
Silly stuff. Oh, Shucked. Shucked is the stupidest, silliest, most heartwarming show about corn. You know, these people in these corn fields and every corny joke is there. And I love it. I'm in for all of it. I think it's hilarious. Again, really well-directed. Everyone's in the same play. It's extremely silly. And yet makes you tear up. It's really well done. Really good craft. Proud of everyone on it.
Conclusion and Call to Action
01:10:09
Speaker
I love that. You're making me think I need to get back to my annual New York visit. We got some stuff to see, you know, a theater spot. Got to support our peeps. Heck yeah. Heck yeah. Well, thank you so much, Ken. This has been amazing. We've got 20 more things to talk about, but have a 10-hour podcast. Everyone get an entire, where you set that off.
01:10:41
Speaker
Thank you listeners for tuning in to Table Work, How New Plays Get Made with Amber Bradshaw. This podcast was brought to you by Working Title Playwrights. If you like what you've heard today, support this podcast and all our initiatives by leaving us a review, following us, and or consider making a tax-deductible donation to Working Title Playwrights at www.workingtitelplaywrights.com.
01:11:00
Speaker
I know, right? I know. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it.