Design and Dramaturgy Skip to main content
Test

Design and Dramaturgy

by Ariel Mitchell, dramaturg This past week, our Gone Missing production team has broken into groups: Design and Dramaturgy. [caption id="attachment_731" align="aligncenter" width="300"]

The design team deep in discussion.[/caption] The designers will focus on how the show will look, how many screens we need, how we will use lighting, costumes, and projections to tell the stories of loss outlined in Gone Missing and The Cleverest Thief. [caption id="attachment_732" align="aligncenter" width="300"]

Some of the performance writers (Sarah Porter, Ali Kinkade, and Jenna Hawkins) putting a moment on its feet.[/caption] Meanwhile the dramaturgy group will be workshopping the moments we have chosen into a text that the actors can memorize and use. Basically what this means is that the four main writers will each take one moment we have chosen home. They will treat it as it's own play thinking of traditional plot structure (inciting incident, rising action, climax) and write a draft. The next time we meet, they will bring it to class. The actors will read it and we will all give our comments and ask questions. The next night, the writer will take home a new moment (taking into consideration the comments given in class) and the whole process starts over again. We repeat this until we have a polished script that we can present at the end of February.

Related Articles

data-content-type="article"

Contextual Resources for The Cherry Orchard

March 27, 2025 09:29 PM
The creative team began working on this production a little more than a year ago. In my role as production dramaturg, I was happy to create a website of resources first for the creative team, and then when we went into rehearsals, for the cast. And now that we are opening the show, the resources offer valuable perspectives to our audiences as well.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection= overrideCardHideByline= overrideCardHideDescription= overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

Moving to the Cherry Orchard

March 20, 2025 08:14 PM
After months of rehearsing on a taped cement floor with acting blocks in place of benches and frames in place of doors, the company finally moves to the theatre space, to a stage with levels and furniture, working doors and chairs out in the audience. The beloved cherry orchard feels so much more real now.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection= overrideCardHideByline= overrideCardHideDescription= overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

“That’s How Things Are”: The Weight of Waiting in The Cherry Orchard

March 20, 2025 03:10 PM
Near the end of his life, Anton Chekhov who had suffered from tuberculosis and depression throughout his life, decided to move to the seaside town of Yalta in order to heal. On January 18, 1904, he wrote to his wife, the actress Olga Knipper, “I’m writing The Cherry Orchard very slowly. Sometimes I feel it’s a success, sometimes a failure…It’s all very ordinary, but that’s how things are, unfortunately.”
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= overrideTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection= overrideCardHideByline= overrideCardHideDescription= overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= overrideTextAlignment=