ABSTRACT

To meaningfully communicate with actors, production dramaturgs have to become fluent in multiple performance pedagogies. In the contemporary theatrical marketplace, actors are trained in a variety of styles, including Viewpoints, commedia, period movement, Suzuki, and Stanislavski. In each production context, dramaturgs respond to the needs of their collaborators; the Suzuki-influenced King Lear, for instance, may require a dramaturg more proficient in physical vocabulary than in rhetorical devices. While knowledge of various acting training methods develops a versatile dramaturg, this essay focuses on the unique miscommunications between the intellectually minded production dramaturg and the impulse-driven Stanislavski actor. By speaking to Stanislavski actors in their own language, dramaturgs are empowered to translate potentially anecdotal historical research into visceral given circumstances that motivate playable action.