Examples of What Dramaturgs Do - Part 2 - Educational Packets

Theatres often engage in educational activities. They will bring shows to schools and will provide educational packets to the schools for use with the students who are going to see the play. A dramaturg may be in charge of handing making the educational packets. At the least, the dramaturg would be involved in helping a team to create the packets.

Perhaps a theatre is going to stage a production of West Side Story. Most theatre artists know that this musical is basically an adaptation or a spin off of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. However, this is not a fact that is known by tons of people. It is definitely something that can be taught in a classroom.

A dramaturg would most likely start a worksheet or a presentation that begins with this fact. Then there would likely be an overview of the characters in West Side Story and an overview of the character in Romeo and Juliet. After that, there would probably be comparing and contrasting the characters in the two plays.

Other things covered in an education packet would be themes, language comparison between the current work and the source material, important facts to know about the type(s) of theatre for the play and the source material, and information about the author(s) of the play.