Dramaturgy Notebook - October 3, 2014

Dramaturgy Notebook – October 3, 2014

By Laurel Green

I recently joined the creative team at SpiderWebShow.ca a theatrical space where Canada, the Internet and performance minds intersect. The team is scattered all across the country, and so we work together online. It is very appropriate that this group curates and produces a website that features online performances from artists across the country by collaborating via google chats, emails, tweets, text messages and weekly video meet ups. We share information, ideas and opinions from wherever we are when the thought strikes us. This is pretty cool. SpiderWebShow features videos, podcasts, photography, commentary, and criticism about making theatre in Canada today. My first project was to help commission a new video series called Bath Time Theatre where theatre parents reenact their favourite plays using only their kid’s bath toys. The first result is the most adorable Beckett play I’ve ever seen.

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about how dramaturgy happens online, and what it means to create and produce work on the internet. How are we performing? Who is the audience? Where are they? How do we interact with each other?

I sat down at the end of a work day to have a google chat with SpiderWebShow’s Digital Dramaturg Graham F. Scott. He’s the talented guy behind the scenes who brings the website to life. We published part of our chat on the website this week, exploring how a dramaturg can contribute to the site’s use of Social Design: the strategic implementation of social media to deepen or broaden the nature of an artistic project. You can read our article over at #CdnCult Times: 
(Click the preview below to be taken to the full article!)

Laurel Green is ATP’s Artistic Associate. She is the production dramaturg for Butcher, premiering October 17, and the assistant director for Charlotte’s Web, opening November 28.