Dramaturgy For Digital Natives

Abstract

Many of the discussions with my fellow contributors to this Forum aptly identify ways in which liberal arts education in general, and theatre and drama curricula within the liberal arts in particular, are already providing university undergraduates with skills they will need for successful lives and careers in the twenty-first century. I’m more than happy to embrace the idea that our programs and departments should be better recognized by administrators and the public for the things we already do well. I would nevertheless advocate at least one important curricular reform that might be made to many of our programs in drama and theatre studies: dramaturgy, in the many places where it is not already the case, should be made part of the core of any university education in theatre and drama. Making this practice as integral to our curricula as courses in acting, directing, or design will not only help to prepare our students for the professional careers in the theatre that a small number of them will have, but will also provide invaluable skills for navigating a culture in which information technologies have left us all on the precipice of fundamental shifts in how we work, live, and come together to create political communities.