21st Century Literary Office Convening
Watch Parties & Tweets on Fri, Feb 24
On Saturday, Feb 25 the convening will start at 10 am (Washington DC) / 3 pm (London) and will be livestreamed on #NEWPLAY TV. Click here for the schedule.
Here's a selection of Tweets found on hashtag #newplay during this afternoon's three sessions:
Glad @Pollykcarl is encouraging dissent and friction in discussion #newplay
— Company1 Dramaturgs (@DturgsC1) February 24, 2012
@thomdunn But fave turg quote "When evryone else is up to thr ears in alligators, dramaturg reminds we're here to drain the swamp. #newplay
— Charles Haugland (@charleswha) February 24, 2012
So much of #dramaturgy is about developing the intuition to understand the WHEN of dramaturgy rather than the what or how. #newplay
— Carrie J Cole (@coleinthefire) February 24, 2012
Jerry Patch: The commission is the most powerful tool of the literary office to advocate for writers. #newplay
— Danielle Mages Amato (@smallhousetales) February 24, 2012
#newplay Yes, the notion of 'turg is old. Yale class as a marker for a notion of "professional" field with standardized practices.
— Aaron Carter (@CarterChicago) February 24, 2012
Patch uses language "to realize a play" as a community responsibility.Multiple hands.I kinda love this. #newplay
— martha wade steketee (@msteketee) February 24, 2012
Ah yes, reminded of Morgan Jenness' observation that we work FOR the American theatre, we work AT our companies. #newplay
— IIana Brownstein (@bostonturgy) February 24, 2012\
"Literary" in "literary office" implies a privilege for text over theatricality in the cultivation of #newplay work.
— IIana Brownstein (@bostonturgy) February 24, 2012
Let's keep one slot every year as TBA, fully staffed & budgeted, so we can be immediately responsive to the world. #newplay
— IIana Brownstein (@bostonturgy) February 24, 2012
"Though we are advocates for structure I dare us not to be bound by it." - @jfdubiner#newplay
— IIana Brownstein (@bostonturgy) February 24, 2012
I think the entire org needs to be a lit office. #newplay
— Tony Adams (@halcyontony) February 24, 2012
@HowlRound this discussion makes me wonder how we envision future Lit Off in ensemble theatres--supporting the "generative artists" #newplay
— Carrie J Cole (@coleinthefire) February 24, 2012
If a thtr reads 800 10-pg samples a year, and never does any of them, how is THAT a good use of time, resources, artistic life? #newplay
— IIana Brownstein (@bostonturgy) February 24, 2012
If dramaturgs only get "credit" for the results of our gatekeeping (finding the gem), are we more likely to hold onto the keys? #newplay
— IIana Brownstein (@bostonturgy) February 24, 2012
Martin makes a good point abt. distinguishing difference between production houses and dev. centers w/ diff. submission models. #newplay
— Jessie Baxter (@revolutionerdy) February 24, 2012
Interpersonal dynamic with other artists plays deeply into process/#newplay - #newplay live on newplaytv.info
— Amanda White Thietje (@AmandaThietje) February 24, 2012
Comments
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Ian- I hear your frustration there. I think the tweet world is best leveraged as a complement to the livestream. We archive that stuff so it can be viewed after-the-fact, so if it's a topic that you want to really engage with (please do!) you can always go there to get a richer sense of the conversation in the middle of it. Go to http://www.livestream.com/n... to find the sessions.
I have to agree it Ian. I still remain very cold to Twitter. I have a twitter account but I never use it. the hashtags and forwarding or repeating of various hashtags is confusing sometimes and I think causes us to lose sight of the origin of the idea. It almost feels like a form of plagiarism.When I look at the feeds and see the same comments retweeted by different people, I am troubled by that for some reason. Also as Ian stated, so much of this discussion in the field is too significant and complex to be boiled down into 140 characters.
I'm going to have to be a bit of a curmudgeon here.
I followed some of the live tweeting of this discussion and I have to confess that medium is a terrible match for the content. We get a lot of one line proclamations, but very little in the how and why things are done, how and why these practices were established, whether they ought be changed, and proposals for models. Very little of these hows, whys, and whethers can by addressed in a satisfying manner in just 140 characters.
Speaking as a playwright, my most helpful interactions with dramaturgs and literary managers are when they explain their hows and whys, while the least helpful communications are when I am told "this is what today's theatre is" as if it was an article of faith that I simply must learn to accept without question. I assume that anytime a dramaturg who has read my work offers to sit down with me and discuss my work that it is to help, but one-liners about contemporary practice do not give me actionable ideas as a writer-- and similarly I'm not getting anything I don't already know from this twitter feed-- or not without wading through a lot of text and hashtags.