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Ep 129: Language as Consciousness (Listen)

Mercedes Muñoz
Boston University
Boston (42.3° N, 71.0° W)

featuring Amy Boratko, Literary Manager, Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven (41.3° N, 72.9° W)

A well-rounded undergraduate education was a major key to Amy Boratko’s success as a dramaturg.

Amy Boratko is currently the literary manager at Yale Repertory Theatre. After graduating from Rice University in 2003, Amy made her way to the northeast, where she attended the Yale School of Drama and earned her MFA in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism. Now, more than 10 years later, she still calls New Haven her home. I had the pleasure of interviewing Amy in New Haven, Connecticut where I spoke with her about her dynamic role in the theater world.

Amy describes the job of a literary manager, or dramaturg, as a “friendly critic.” She has the freedom and the responsibility of looking at (and guiding) the whole play process, not just a part of it. Her day-to-day is constantly evolving and adapting with the busy schedule of Yale Rep. She focuses on supporting new play development, which means she manages and reads many play submissions. Sometimes her job requires her to do some field coverage, which means meeting with playwrights or going into New York City to watch a new show. When Yale Rep is focusing on putting forward a world premiere of a play, Amy is actively in rehearsal working with the playwright, director, and company to build and support the new production.

Although her job as dramaturg is an extremely important one, she expressed that it comes with a bit of anonymity. She said, “no one is singing the dramaturgy on their way out. They’re humming the tune of the song, they’re humming the composer’s work, they’re laughing at the lines that the playwright wrote, and it’s those words that go on. Your mark is often invisible.” Amy described being a dramaturg as someone who see value with being a part of a team, not the headliner.

When I asked her to share some advice for any aspiring dramaturgs, she advised that anyone who believes they might be interested in dramaturgy should spend their undergraduate years getting the best, most well-rounded education possible. At the time she attended, Rice University did not have a theater degree that Amy could pursue at an undergraduate level; instead, she was able to broaden her intellectual horizons. She studied English literature and learned Russian and Polish, all while joining theater programs that helped develop her passion for dramaturgy. She still uses the skills of reading, writing, and researching that she cultivated in college in her job as dramaturg. She said it is important to understand your passions beyond the theater in order to make your art much richer.

The theater world is a dynamic industry that has a variety of important roles, both for people who enjoy the spotlight and for those who don’t mind being backstage. However, those who work in the background like Amy can have a very powerful impact, which reminded me of the chain in a bicycle. A psychological study from the University of Liverpool in 2013 asked adults to draw a bicycle. Surprisingly, few people could correctly draw the chain on a bicycle even though they self-reported to be very familiar with bikes. The study revealed that the most integral part of the machine, what makes it move and gives it purpose, is largely invisible to its users. Similarly, even though her impact isn’t always acknowledged by theatergoers, Amy Boratko’s work as a dramaturg is the chain on the bicycle that is the Yale Repertory Theatre.

Highlights from the interview

Everyone’s family community and life circumstances create an initial role for them in society. What was expected of you, and did you adhere to or stray from that?

I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, which is a city that has an arts and theater scene but no large Equity houses (when I was there), so I didn’t have exposure to theaters like the one I work at now. My dad is a Vietnam veteran, and worked in manufacturing, and my mom was a teacher. They always value arts, arts education, and literature, but I did not grow up among professional artists and theater-makers. What my parents gave me was freedom and encouragement for my pursuits, but I also depended on letting my own interests, and many teachers and mentors, drive me toward my field.

My story of how I got to dramaturgy…It is a very specialized field very few people come across on a normal basis. A high school theater teacher had us write essays on why we liked theater. Based on how I talked about experiencing theater, and what I got from the art form, she wrote a little note in the corner that said, “You should study dramaturgy.”  It seemed like a strange German word, but I filed it in the back of my head. I pursued a lot of other things in theater and outside of it: it’s more fun when you’re a high schooler to get to act or get to build things. But I always had that word “dramaturg” in the back of my head.

When did you first envision yourself as a dramaturg? 

The first time I had an inkling that dramaturgy might be a path for me was in college. Even though I wanted to pursue theater, I chose to go to Rice University—a school without (at that time) a formal theater program. I wanted an excellent, well-rounded education and to hone my thinking and writing skills.

Even though I wasn’t studying theater on a degree-track, I took classes in acting and dramatic literature. I worked on shows, extracurricular. There was an undergraduate program called the Rice Players that offered me the chance to try my hand at lots of different roles in theater. Through Rice Players, I did more than just act in plays: I costume designed, worked on marketing committees, and started to learn a bit about what I’d now call artistic producing. In my classes, I was learning Russian and Polish and studying English literature.

I spent one summer acting in the Hangar Lab Company. Actors would take classes in the morning and then rehearse and perform in plays during the afternoon and evening—a little bit like a taste of studying acting at a conservatory. I found myself more attracted to thinking about how the director made choices to cut a play or how they were approaching their work. I was “in my head” as a performer, and I wanted to be engaging with and analyzing plays from a different point of attack.

After I graduated from Rice, I started thinking about my next steps, and I applied to MFA dramaturgy and PhD dramatic literature programs. I went to Yale School of Drama. There, in the MFA Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism program, I had three years to hone my writing, thinking, and reading skills and to learn about theater and theater history. Yale provided me opportunities to work as a dramaturg on productions, giving me practical experience alongside the academic.

Can you provide your definition of dramaturgy?

Dramaturgy has lots of different definitions. I’m sure if you lined up every dramaturg or literary manager in the country, and asked for the definition of her job, each of us would all give you a different answer! Part of the profession’s German origins are rooted in the idea of having a friendly critic “in the room.” Today, in our culture, we often think about critics as people who dole out stars or give endorsements, but a critical eye could foster inquiry within a rehearsal room, within making a play. Lots of theater artists can work as dramaturgs in a process—providing critical feedback in a process, context for the collaborators—but they might not always use the title.

This position can manifest itself in a lot of different ways. I mostly work with playwrights and directors on brand new plays. I’m a first reader who has the skills to read something on the page and envision it on the stage in my head. Part of my job is to understand where a playwright wants to go with her play and support her on the path to fulfilling that. It can start with a dialogue with the playwriting, and it can result in helping her get the right collaborators or resources within the institution to develop the work. I often do research to help the writer or the company understand the world the play—either a new world invented in a particular play or a specific historical setting. Ultimately, a lot of my job is being able to look at something and accurately describe what I see.

A big part of my job is to fully understand the art and the plays that we’re putting on stage, and the artists’ point of view on them, so I can communicate it to audiences and approach conversations and talkbacks. I communicate to audiences through program notes—which I write or edit—or I might work with our development department on copy for grants to support artistic programming.

What is your typical day-to-day look like?

My day-to-day can vary wildly. My focus, in broad strokes, is supporting new play development at Yale Rep and managing the literary office. For the literary office, that means reading a lot of plays and managing the submissions that come to us. I meet with playwrights. I go and see new work in the field. I am the production dramaturg on many of the world premieres here at Yale Rep. When I’m the dramaturg for a world premiere, I spend at least 20 hours a week in the rehearsal room—working with the playwright, working with the director and company, building and supporting the show and then everything that requires, which is attending previews, doing audience talkbacks, writing program notes. I manage Yale Rep’s WILL POWER! program, which is one of our education initiatives. My job includes working with our commissioned playwrights to develop their work—to produce and plan residencies and workshops to further their creative processes.

Do you think that there are any misconceptions about your job? 

Often, one might hear that dramaturgs are the “smartest people in the room” or they’re just the researcher. By the “smartest person,” it can mean that you’re simply there to get facts or should know all the facts before coming into the room. But the goal of the job is to have a larger understanding of the play and learn with the company and the playwright. It’s not about being the room’s Google or Wikipedia. It’s also helpful for other members of the team to delve into certain parts of research—as more brains on a process only enriches it. For the research work I do, I think there’s an artistry to it that’s focused to support the process.

Dramaturgy is based on the idea of having a critic in the room, but that notion of criticism can be positive, not with the negative connotation that it often carries in our society today. There’s often the need, as a dramaturg, to make sure that your criticism is positive and supportive.

That’s such an important part of the whole process.

It’s a funny thing, because I think part of the tension of the job is that, on the one hand, because there’s nothing to hold onto or because there’s little physical to point to, you’re in a position that sometimes can be perceived as safety. If a play is successful and has a future life, no one is singing the dramaturgy on their way out (as our resident dramaturg would say). They’re humming the tune of the song, they’re humming the composer’s work, they’re laughing at the lines that the playwright wrote, and it’s those words that go on. Your mark is always invisible to the audience, which means that you don’t get the highs, but then you also don’t suffer the blows of bad criticism or reception in the same way. When something falters, it’s rare that the dramaturg is the one called out. It’s a position where you have deep investment but often not a lot of attention drawn to your work.

That’s interesting. That reminds me of the chain in a bicycle. It’s so important, but everyone always forgets that it’s there. I’m a psychology student, so one study that comes to mind is one where they had adults draw bicycles, and no one knew where to put the bicycle chain even though we all interact with bikes so frequently. We always just assume it’s there. No one really understands how it works or how it doesn’t work. It’s such an integral part of the whole process, but no one really understands where it goes or how it works, and we’d be lost without it.

And as you probably know from studying psychology, it also takes a certain temperament to understand that part of your job might be to blend in seamlessly to a collaboration. Actors, directors, and playwrights receive a different kind of attention for their work—and have different types of responsibilities in collaborations. So you realize that to do this job, you have to be okay with really throwing yourself into a bigger vision and knowing that your work seems effortless in its support of someone else’s vision or in supporting the audience experience. It’s more about what you can bring to a room or if your absence is felt.

What are the skills that you find yourself utilizing the most in your position, and how did your college years prepare you for that?

I think my writing, thinking, and reading skills are the ones I use the most. I felt like one of the great things that I got at Rice was that professors in the English program valued a clear, jargon-free writing. I felt like that was training that I got in undergraduate and then continued in a very specific way in graduate school. There’s such a strong link between clear writing and thinking. To be able to clearly convey your ideas in writing is something that I have to do every day. I have to use research skills and be able to go and find information for playwrights. I have to be able to investigate. I need to have tools to analyze a piece of literature and dive into its context. It’s the bedrock of that humanities degree that I find permeates my work.

Can you describe the dynamic of a team that works on a project in terms of the structure and organization?

There’s teamwork that manifests in different ways. Theater is a collaborative art. By necessity, a playwright needs and relies on other people to be able to see their art to completion. I would say I’m constantly in situations where there is teamwork, and I think it’s valuable. On a production, I might be part of a team led by a director and playwright. In my organizations, on projects, or for our new play development, I may have roles where I’m leading a team. Because my roles can change, I have to understand where my position is on a team and what I need to bring to the collaboration.

In our organization, there’s also a desire to have a deeper understanding of all the dynamics of collaboration: who is in the room, what biases that we might all have, what we all bring into that collaboration and have a deeper awareness of each other. We also use a lot of consensus-based decision making here. It’s important, when I’m trying to build the team, for people to feel like they have a voice, and that the guiding principles of our team are clear. I think teamwork requires transparency, and I think it involves a constant checking in on what the dynamic is. So if you are leading the team, you need to be looking at the team and seeing who’s participating, who’s not, who’s fading away, who has a voice, who isn’t having a voice in that moment. And that needs to be rectified by you, as the team leader. And vice versa: if you aren’t the leader of the team, how can you listen and support the process?

How do you see science and technology reshaping the work that you do, and what changes do you foresee in your specific area of expertise?

Projection technology has become more common and more central to theater-making during my career. Yale has one of the few projection design programs/concentrations in the country, so we’re providing training for the future leaders of this area of design. Lighting technology, stage technology, is getting richer all the time. And with that, the playwrights are writing with the sense of how can they push forward their vision on stage based on…what does it mean to write with a consciousness of the potential for projections? How do you interact with something that’s moving or use livestream or projections to create simultaneity on stage? We did a production of Twelfth Night at Yale Rep, and the director Carl Cofield imagined a virtual reality world, and then the designers were able to use technology and stagecraft to accomplish that vision.

On a more basic level, every year my specific literary management tasks become more and more digital and less paper-based, so we have to have systems for electronic submissions as opposed to people sending hard copies of their work.

What advice would you give to students who are interested in your field?

Specifically with dramaturgy, or with any other theater form, it’s often the specific skills that you have in your concentration, or your very specialized field, that are extremely important. And they are important, but I also feel like every theater artist needs to have a rich intellectual life, needs to have a rich interest in history, needs to be somebody who is inquisitive and can listen and see others, and needs to be able to analyze literature or an image or a soundscape or a piece of music on a deep level. If I were talking to a high school student, I would urge them to spend their college career particularly getting the best, most well-rounded education available to them. They should understand what their passions are beyond the theater and develop varied interests. That will fuel and make their art so much richer.

Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.