Dramaturgy in motion

I am at a table with very smart people. Smart in that way that I have never been smart -- heads full of random facts and semi-important names; remembering everything they ever heard, saw, read -- but also smart in that other way. The director has found the only extant biography of the Canadian playwright that American production teams can get their greedy hands on without ordering from Amazon.com, and has copies of T.S. Eliot poems that he believes are subtly alluded to in the script. Gold. The sound designer suggests the nostalgic music of Beirut -- "Think Amelie" he helpfully offers to those of us who look lost (but only half of us are, because these people are smart in that way I have never been smart) -- would help us as we are finding an appropriate soundscape. Gold. The Artistic Director explains how the play fits into the larger goals of the company and why it specifically was picked for this season: Gold. I have to be reminded that I have two photographs -- results of a Google search of the word verdigris -- that might provide some insight. I sheepishly share.

I ask questions. I play devil's advocate. I remind people of what they said the other day. I try to keep up. We are in the back of a restaurant in a section that is outside when weather permits and under a tent when it doesn't. There is a space heater frying my ass. Literally. Jess moves my coat because she thinks it might be burning. I am hot, but I am having fun. I love conversations like this. It is Autumn 2003 and I'm in the back of someone's car driving back to Advanced Playwriting from a preview of The Goat, or Who is Sylvia. And we are talking about it, and I am deciding I cannot stop talking about it and all I want to do is talk about it.

Autumn 2007 is quickly feeling like winter in the back of this tented pub with good cheap dark beers, and questions of "do these smart people need me" quickly evolve into "how do I step up my game so that these smart people need me." Maybe this is dramaturgy: smart people helping smart people be smart...