ABSTRACT
The role of a dramaturg on a musical project – one in development, in production, or in scholarly analysis – is a perennial problem. If a dramaturg is not a trained musician, the musical components of “musical theatre” can seem arcane or intimidating, prompting the dramaturg to skirt them altogether. If a composer and lyricist are suspicious of input from those they perceive to be uninitiated in the mysteries of their craft, the dramaturg can be deliberately sidelined from the discussion of musical ideas. Or, if the creators of a musical project attempt to avoid the taint of what they judge to be a bourgeois Broadway style, they may argue that theirs is not a conventional musical and that its musical material is, therefore, intentionally unconventional and ought to be left alone. The result in any case is the same: the songs are left to fend for themselves as the dramaturg limits focus to the play’s more familiar, non-musical terrain, dramaturging it as he or she would dramaturg a non-musical play. Yet musical and non-musical plays are not the same and cannot be approached as if they were.
