When the curtains close after a play and the audience cheers, what lingers in their minds? The mesmerizing actors? The elaborate costume designs? The story’s interpretation? Admiration for the dramaturgs? “Dramaturgs?” one might ask. Not many would think of dramaturgs or perhaps even know what they are. But without dramaturgy, theater would lack the aforementioned factors that make an audience fall in love with a production.

To anyone who is not a devoted thespian, the term “dramaturgy” likely appears quite foreign. Marissa Fenley, Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) faculty member and a literary fellow at Court Theatre, states that a dramaturg’s role is “understanding the structure of a dramatic work… and unpacking the kinds of potential meanings embedded within the text.” For fourth-year TAPS student and dramaturg Jo Selmeczy, it is “looking for dramaturgical kernels of popcorn that pop when they’re activated by other artists.… That would look like a question that we can ask and any sort of person who encounters it would find something to pop off of.”

Selmeczy is the student co-facilitator of Court Theatre’s new dramaturgy cohort. Led by Fenley, the inaugural cohort provides students with opportunities and experiences with dramaturgy that go beyond just theory. It is an example of the intellectual ties that Court Theatre, an independent, Tony Award–winning theater located on UChicago’s campus, tries to facilitate with the University.

Technically, dramaturgy opportunities have existed at the University prior to the cohort’s official founding this year. Fenley says she has been working with Court Theatre for three years, teaching dramaturgy to a few students through independent studies and grants. University Theater, the student theater RSO, has a dramaturgy position for many of its shows, and the Committee on Theater and Performance Studies offers a few courses which touch on the field. Now, the cohort intends to amplify opportunities in dramaturgy in the University, and there are ambitious plans ahead.

For the current production being studied, a rendition of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Fenley and Selmeczy have already conducted dramaturgical research and are now sharing it with the other members of the cohort. For Court Theatre’s next production, Miss Julie, Fenley says they will be working with dramaturg Abhi Shrestha, who will be guiding the process for students to conduct research themselves. When asked what the cohort will holistically consist of, Fenley said, “I think this is going to be a space for us to really think and learn about what dramaturgy historically has been and what it could be.”

The activities of the cohort differ from meeting to meeting. Sometimes the cohort will meet with guest dramaturgs who will advise aspiring students. Fenley says these dramaturgs visit for only a day and describe their experiences in and approaches to dramaturgy. Other times, the cohort will be involved with rehearsals, such as by observing a rehearsal of The Taming of the Shrew to analyze how dramaturgy is utilized in the production and to interact with performers, directors, and on-set dramaturgs. Mostly, members will engage in regular meetings consisting of dramaturgical readings and collective research.

Studying the history and context of a production is not the only reason to do dramaturgy. Along with dramaturgical experience, students will also gain skills that can be used beyond theater. For Fenley, dramaturgy involves “being able to take really high-level concepts and smart thoughts that exist in the abstract and figure out how to bring them into a practical, grounded, applied space that is nevertheless rigorous.” Selmeczy found that practicing dramaturgy has personally improved their own attentiveness, work ethic, and self-trust.

I witnessed dramaturgy firsthand during a cohort meeting on October 17. Sitting in a circle, the cohort members were captivated by the advice of Tanya Palmer, the production dramaturg for The Taming of the Shrew and assistant dean and executive artistic director in the School of Communication at Northwestern University. Since Palmer usually works with newer productions, she interpreted the classic and controversial Shakespeare play in a modern light. One aspect of her assistance was displayed in the “visual actor packet” that she made with Fenley and Selmeczy.” This packet, a kind of “Pinterest of academics,” according to Fenley, contains multimedia research, ranging from academic article excerpts to TikToks to music videos. Each resource in the packet was connected to an aspect of production, such as a character or theme. Through the packet, the actors improve their understanding of their characters through “charismatic anecdote[s]” that ignite associative and adjacent knowledge, as described by Fenley.

Theory gave way to practice, and cohort members began taking turns acting out a scene from The Taming of the Shrew. Each new round brought differing interpretations and structures. Text was added and new characters were introduced. The students analyzed the effects and efficacy of these changes, acting like true dramaturgs.

While the cohort is still growing in size, this has not restricted Fenley and Selmeczy’s aspirations for the group. Fenley hopes that, if this program lasts, future years can involve better incorporation of dramaturgy into productions at Court Theatre. Fenley expects this cohort “will be a way of thinking about what a dramaturgy department at Court might look like and how it could interface with the University of Chicago.” Similarly, Selmeczy hopes that, “in a perfect world, UChicago becomes a school people go to for dramaturgy.”

Typically, dramaturgs are left in the shadows of productions, sometimes not even interacting with directors, designers, and actors. In the words of Selmeczy, “because [dramaturgy] is hard to define, it is easily written off,” yet “everyone in a production does dramaturgy, they just don’t realize that’s what it is.” Fenley and Selmeczy plan to change this underappreciation toward dramaturgs by making the cohort a place to give “young dramaturgs [the] tools to go into a room and advocate, ‘This is the kind of value I bring to the space,’” as Fenley put it.

Fenley and Selmeczy both conveyed that anyone can, and should, join the cohort, no matter their experience or availability. For Fenley, it’s important that the cohort does not have barriers to entry. “There are first-years in the cohort. There are Ph.D. students in the cohort. There is a huge range. Some people have worked as dramaturgs professionally already. Others have never heard of dramaturgy before. So, I think this is going to be a space for us to really think and learn about what dramaturgy historically has been and what it could be.”

For Fenley, “what it could be” is immediately clear. “Nothing short of taking over the American theater and changing how dramaturgy works,” she said.