COLLECTIVE DRAMATURGY

It is the action and effect of creating, composing, staging and representing a

drama, turning it into a theatrical show. The term applies not only to theater but to
other performing arts shows, such as dance, opera or circus.
Dramaturgy also refers to the creative activity of the playwright and his entire
literary production.
The aesthetic theories of classicism of the 20th century proposed as a model of
dramaturgy to respect the rule of the three units (action, place and time), ordering
the dramatic process into three phases: exposition, middle and end.

Semiotics and applications

The objective of dramaturgy is to give the text and the work of the actors a
coherent joint structure. In that sense, more than a writing, it is the design of a
story according to the specific elements of theater. Starting in the 20th century, the
so-called “actor's dramaturgy” has developed, incorporating the personality of the
actors into the process of dramatic construction. The term dramaturgy has also
been extended to the tasks of directors and other theatrical technicians and
creatives. Therefore, we talk about the dramaturgy of the director, the lighting
designer, the costume designer or the set designer, referring to their particular
reading of the dramatic text and its transfer to the stage.
Dramaturgy, or 'dramaturgist' activity, in any work written in order to represent a
story, also applies to film scripts and soap operas.
Playwrights and playwrights
Due to the specialization that exists in the performing arts sector, there is a need to
differentiate the literary creator of a work, the playwright or dramatic writer, from
the person who receives a story and adapts it to put it on stage: the playwright .
Both can be considered creators and therefore susceptible to receiving copyright.
Normally, when writing, a playwright is already proposing a first adaptation of his
work, so playwrights tend to be playwrights, but not the other way around.
This figure, that of a playwright, in most countries is less visible since it is
automatically assumed by the director or stager of a work, but in Germany it is
common for there to be teams of several playwrights who also adopt the roles of
cultural manager in public theaters, planning a season according to a very specific
repertoire, with very precise historical and technical indications for the director, who
has less margin than his foreign counterparts.
Throughout the History of Theater it is easy to find examples of collective creation.
As a precedent, it seems to be defined within the work system of the "Commedia
dell'Arte" companies, along with other staging resources such as improvisation . In
the second half of the 20th century, creative collectives proliferated in Western
theater, driven by different approaches or objectives (social, political or purely
professional, and sometimes synthesized in a "mix").
On a more practical and professional level, it is interesting to review the proposals
for the Democratic Statute presented on May 10, 1970 in the former West Berlin ,
within the series of colloquiums on the "democratization of theater" held between
May 8 and 24. mentioned month and year. That day the colloquium opened with
the presentation of a document proposing "the participation, with equal rights, of
each member of the staff in the projects and decisions of the management", for
which a council would be elected among all, whose tasks would include they
stated:
1. The constitution of the repertoire and the general artistic options of the
company;
2. The hiring of new members and the duration of their contract, as well as the
hiring of temporary collaborators;
3. The attribution and distribution of staging and roles;
4. Rehearsal periods;
5. ...and other details of the economy of the theater collective, such as
transparency of salaries within the group and also for public opinion, control
of the subscription system and/or attracting audiences.
In Spain and Latin America, collective creation was the axis in the phenomenon of
independent theater , when in many cases the prudent need to "mask the works in
a collective spirit that blurred civil responsibility" was added to equality of training
and participation. By insistence on the method or by recognition of a new reading
of dramaturgy and the scenic event, the truth is that the phenomenon of collective
creation has acquired the status of a subject in theater training in the 21st century.

EXAMPLES:
Idiosyncrasy
Idiosyncrasy is the set of ideas, behavior, attitudes, etc., particular and/or typical of
an individual, group or human collective, generally towards another individual
and/or human group.

Independent Theater
Independent theater in Spain was a youth movement that began at the beginning
of the second half of the 20th century, almost simultaneously in different parts of
Spain.

Gadfly
Tábano was an independent theater group that developed its activity in Spain,
Europe and Latin America, between 1968 and 1983. Although many components
alternated amateurism with professional dedication and communal and assembly
management was practiced, the managerial capacity of Juan Margallo was always
recognized and, already in the second period, the ownership of Guillermo Heras as
director.