Freelance dramaturgs in the twenty-first century: journalists, advocates, and curators

Abstract

With the way information is exchanged right now, it is very easy to engage with someone across town or across the world. News travels across the globe quickly, and it is the same with art. Theatre artists are becoming more international in the way that they engage with one another across continents, creating cultural movements which lead to transnational collaborations. As dramaturgs, we have always been developing plays, advocating for their widespread performance, and endeavoring to communicate cultural context. Now, we are doing it on a much larger scale. We use language and the practice of dramaturgy as a tool to help integrate productions, seasons, and international collaborations. Our dramaturgical lingua franca is an increasingly valuable asset in the global economy, as is our free-thinking spirit of creativity and diplomatic training. Our given assets are education, experience, and collaborative training. In our fast-paced, “hyper-connected” global economy, as Thomas L. Friedmandescribes it, sometimes there are misunderstandings.1 Thanks to our experience, dramaturgs should feel pretty much at home in this climate of multicultural interconnectivity. As cultural liaisons with literary and performance training, we are poised to evolve into greater leaders as we assist others in navigating new employment and collaborative realities in the twenty-first century. But first, we would do well to build a new infrastructure of information sharing and archives. Three ways to build these bridges are by engaging our contacts and the world at large as journalists, advocates, and curators. With the 2008 American financial industry collapse, our economic reality changed.Companies were downsized even more in favor of employing part-time workers and consultants. Many workers who would have expected to work for someone else for most of their lives began to consider self-employment. As a result of this trend, the office, or even the manufacturing plant, will not be a primary, long-term location for the worker of the future. It seems everyone is freelancing at some task, with many working at home stringing several part-time assignments together in an effort to create full-time income. “Indeed, statistics now show that about a third of journalistsand creative workers are already independent, and that number is only going to increase.”2 Freelancing has become a global movement. Due to these shifting employment parameters, new expectations and realities weremet with invention, particularly in the form of more community-based workspaces all over the country. People are working at home and then meeting in a shared space to exchange ideas and opportunities. Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson describes why co-working in the tech field, specifically, is a growing trend: “The main benefits of this kind of setup are camaraderie (small startups can be lonely), knowledge sharing, high energy, culture, and cost sharing.”3