Dramaturgy and the Art of Collective Discovery
One of the joys of producing Shakespeare at the university level, especially for the dramaturgy team, is diving deep into various editions of the text. For this production, director Adam Houghton invited the cast to work directly from the Folio text. (The First Folio is the 1623 collection of Shakespeare’s plays, published by his fellow actors after his death, and is considered to be the earliest authoritative source for many of his works.) In the folio edition, spelling and punctuation hadn’t yet been standardized, sometimes making the Elizabethan English tricky to decipher, but also grounding rehearsals in the language as Shakespeare’s earliest audiences might have encountered it.
To support that process, the dramaturgy team created an annotated version of the Folio script, offering definitions of unfamiliar words, explanations of historical context, and notes on intertextual references that deepen the play’s meaning. We left significant space between the lines of dialogue, so that when the script was printed, the actors would have plenty of room for scansion. Our goal was not to simplify the language, but to illuminate it—so actors could make informed, specific choices rooted in the text.
Just as importantly, the digital version of the script became a collaborative space. Actors added their own annotations, including discoveries made in rehearsal, questions to explore, patterns they noticed, and moments that sparked discussion. Over time, the document evolved into a shared record of inquiry and discovery, a living text that continued to grow both inside and outside the rehearsal room.
Alongside this work, we carefully shaped the script for performance. Thoughtful cuts to the text allowed us to maintain narrative clarity and momentum while preserving the integrity of the language and the arc of the story. We trimmed the text once before rehearsals began, and even continued our selective cutting during rehearsals and run-throughs. The result is a production grounded in Shakespeare’s original text, yet energized by ongoing conversation and collective exploration.
In this way, dramaturgy served not just as research support, but as an active partner in the creative process. The photos included here offer a glimpse into the actors’ marked-up scripts: pages alive with thought, investigation, and artistry. In many ways, they tell the story of the rehearsal process just as vividly as the performance itself.
