Examples of What Dramaturgs Do - Part 7 - Sitting in on Rehearsals to Help with Various Research

Dramaturgs should be an essential part of rehearsals. A director may want a dramaturg at every rehearsal, or the director may be more lax allowing the dramaturg to continue in routine activities in her daily life, but then wanting her to come into rehearsals when she doesn't have something happening.

A real life example for me is that I was a dramaturg for a production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap. I would go to the rehearsals I could attend. The director understood that I could not stand the heat in the theatre with how hot it became during the summer, so I couldn't stay many times. However, I would come to check in on different things going on for the production.

One of the first things that came up was how to say the name Paravacini. While there were clips of productions where people said the name, "Pair-uh-ven-cheen-ee," I had the knowledge that in Italian, a single C in front of an I, it is said like an S and when it is a double C in front of an I, it is said like CH. (All you have to do is think of the pasta shapes vermicelli and fettuccine). I did more research on the name. I found some history and how people pronounced the name. It was always with the CH sound. I was able to bring this information back to the cast and crew.

Another important part that came up was that one of the characters says, "Jeunesse—jeunesse—as the poet says." From the French that I remembered after taking it for seven years, I know that jeunesse meant "youth." However, the actor who said those lines kept insisting that it was "je ne sais quois" as in an "I don't know what." A major problem is that this line did not make sense.

However, even though I knew this, I went back and did research into the French. Then I did research on Agatha Christie, finding out that she knew French, so this would definitely not be something where she made an error. It was definitely the French word for "youth."

Dramaturgs will take notes and do research on them when issues come up in rehearsal. The director is free to be concerned about the other aspects of rehearsal that is run by a director. The dramaturg researches into the era, the words, the language - anything that the director would like to know or okays for the dramaturg to research for the cast or crew.