I read in a huge number of scripts, this is part of my job, I open a script really hoping to find a

new voice.

Hi, I'm an Catanio, the dramaturg at Lincoln Center thing. His definition of a dramaturg is an
editor in a publishing house or specifically an acquisitions editor in a publishing house.

Our primary responsibility, of course, is to read plays that are submitted to the theater, like an
editor would read plays and make recommendations based on that. We also work on productions
that new plays we work as an editor would work with a writer on suggesting thoughts and
rewrites, changes, cuts. When we work on classical plays, we do, you know, prepare a text. We
may make changes or cuts. It's a job that that requires a knowledge of theater, history and
knowledge of languages and knowledge of literature.

And it also requires a great working knowledge of theater, of actors, of directing how plays are
put together and plays are built. I come from a family of scientists. My father was a scientist. My
mother studied chemistry. My brother went to MIT and I was actually a physics major in college.
And I got interested in theater just because I loved the theater that I was seeing at that time. I was
living the Bay Area and I was fortunate enough to make some connections and get involved with
the American Conservatory Theater during its glory days under Bill Ball and I worked as the
assistant to Edward Hastings, who was the associate artistic director.

And that was really a connection in a relationship that changed my life. He was the one who said
to me, you should go to graduate school in theater. He wrote me a letter and I was accepted at the
Yale School of Drama and Criticism. And then I was fortunate enough to actually get a job in the
theater. And that was the literary manager of the Phenix. And I came in to my first day of work,
to the second day of rehearsal of Uncommon Women and others by Wendy Wasserstein, who
turned to me and said, Thank God you're here.

And no one has ever had a happier introduction to their professional life than I have. Courtesy of
Wendy.

I've worked at the at the Phenix at the acting company. At second stage. I came here and I've
been called dramaturg literary manager. So as far as my experience goes, literary managers and
dramaturge are the same job. I've always liked the word dramaturg because nobody knew what it
meant for me. It also implies coedited, as I do with Jonquiere, the Lincoln Center Theater
Review, which is a literary review that we produce three times a year. That is sort of an added
conversation to the plays we present with our audiences.
I also run the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, which is a large scale project that the theater does
for emerging stage directors when needed.

I do sometimes small, sometimes very massive research for actors in productions, if that's called
for. So it's a kind of job that can be whatever you make it to be, depending on the needs of your
theater and your own interests.

I guess we had an extraordinary time here on the coast of Utopia hiding behind my door. I've
kept off a long four page sheet of paper that I put together to really understand all the
chronological specifics of that very complex play. Everything in that production, with very few
exceptions, is true.

I had the kind of wonderful task of seeing which scene belonged when. So everything that was
needed by the by the company is on this rather long sheet.

That was an exciting thing to to to find that kind of research because that company was so in
love with the play, they knew everything. So they didn't have to take rehearsal time asking
questions like when did Belinsky meet Herts? And they knew that they could tell him not only
when they knew it, but how, you know, it was all done.

When you're in dramaturg, you you work with the director, Mark Llamosa, our director, who's
working right now in the grand manner. The director is in charge of the interpretation. The
director is in charge of the room. You're never doing anything the director doesn't know about.
What I did for this was to use the great resources upstairs of the Lincoln Center Library for the
performing arts. They actually have, you know, correspondence between Katharine Cornell and
her husband, Guthrie McLintock.

Boyd Gaines plays Guthrie McLintock and Kate Burton plays Katharine Cornell. So we arranged
for the company to go upstairs and see this material plays by, of course, by Pete Gerney. And he
did meet Katharine Cornell when he was a young man. And he sets out very charmingly at the
beginning of the play, the actual meeting. It's the standard lovely stage door encounter. Then the
rest of the play is his imagined encounter. He's invited backstage and they have a whole, you
know, scene, you know, long played together.
And we're now at the beginning of a tech rehearsal, which is traditionally the time when the
dramaturg goes away or sits at the back of the house.

And all of these people who are passing behind us have very important things to ask, Mark. And
my job is done basically each.

Production is totally different, and that's one of the great things about being a dramaturg, if you if
you look around my office, you'll see piles of books, books about spirit, rituals that I worked on
when we did Joe Turner's Come and Gone, along with books about orgasm, which I used for in
the next room by Sarah Rule every six months. It's something radically different. This is the ideal
job for people who love literature, who speak languages, who understand and love actors.

When I go on to a stage and I see a ghost like I'm a happy person and that has never ceased. It's a
funny combination of characteristics and and having people recognize me on the street is not
something that I enjoy.

If I did, I wouldn't be happy in the job.