Carnegie Mellon Dramaturgy

Carnegie Mellon Dramaturgy The undergraduate Dramaturgy Option at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. Check back here to stay in touch and follow us on Twitter !

The Carnegie Mellon model of dramaturgy is a muscular, critically engaged, artistically vibrant approach to dramaturgy that requires thorough historical understanding, theoretical training broad and deep, and a passionate dedication to creating powerful, relevant performance of all types.

The story of the collapse of Enron reminds of the adage "plus ça change, plus ç’est la même chose": it’s a story of arro...
11/05/2025

The story of the collapse of Enron reminds of the adage "plus ça change, plus ç’est la même chose": it’s a story of arrogant f***s who are convinced that the rules don’t apply to them, and who are supported in that belief by the self-serving interests of an entire ecosystem of people and institutions who benefit from turning a blind eye to their crimes and transgressions....

The story of the collapse of Enron reminds of the adage “plus ça change, plus ç’est la même chose”: it’s a story of arrogant f***s who are convinced that the rules don’t apply to them, …

This week, for a very limited run, Kinetic Theatre Company is producing Sam Tsoutsouvas’s performance of his own adaptat...
10/08/2025

This week, for a very limited run, Kinetic Theatre Company is producing Sam Tsoutsouvas’s performance of his own adaptation of Herman Melville’s short story, “Bartleby the Scrivener: a Story of Wall Street.” It’s a small chamber piece – both simple in production values and compact in stage time – but it offers outsized emotional and philosophical rewards....

This week, for a very limited run, Kinetic Theatre Company is producing Sam Tsoutsouvas’s performance of his own adaptation of Herman Melville’s short story, “Bartleby the Scrivener: a Story of Wal…

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This truism – originally penned by Lord Acton in the l...
10/08/2025

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This truism – originally penned by Lord Acton in the late nineteenth century – is a primary object of investigation in Turkish/French playwright Sedef Ecer’s cynical play First Lady. The play is set in a “modern banana republic” in a vaguely defined Mesopotamia, in the midst of a popular uprising against an oppressive authoritarian president....

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This truism – originally penned by Lord Acton in the late nineteenth century – is a primary object of investigation in Turkish/Fren…

Noises Off (written in 1982 by playwright Michael Frayn, now playing in its 2000 revised version at the Pittsburgh Publi...
10/06/2025

Noises Off (written in 1982 by playwright Michael Frayn, now playing in its 2000 revised version at the Pittsburgh Public Theater) might best be described as a theatrical machine for producing silliness. I choose that word deliberately: “silly” derives from the Old English “seely,” which meant happy, blissful, or blessed, and it is pure bliss indeed to be made to laugh the way this play can make you laugh, particularly in these times when the escape into laughter feels like such a blessed relief....

Noises Off (written in 1982 by playwright Michael Frayn, now playing in its 2000 revised version at the Pittsburgh Public Theater) might best be described as a theatrical machine for producing sill…

In many ways, the story told by LM Feldman in their new play Another Kind of Silence is familiar, perhaps even cliché: a...
09/29/2025

In many ways, the story told by LM Feldman in their new play Another Kind of Silence is familiar, perhaps even cliché: a woman on vacation in Athens gets romantically swept off her feet by a free-spirited artist, and the relationship unlocks desires in both that they didn’t realize they’d had. (A quick scan of my memory brings up a few books and films with a similar trajectory, for example: ...

In many ways, the story told by LM Feldman in their new play Another Kind of Silence is familiar, perhaps even cliché: a woman on vacation in Athens gets romantically swept off her feet by a free-s…

Continuing my thoughts about the August Wilson American Century Cycle Experience, currently on stage at Pittsburgh Playw...
08/19/2025

Continuing my thoughts about the August Wilson American Century Cycle Experience, currently on stage at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Company: with Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom having now opened in PPTCO’s brand-new cabaret space at Madison Arts Center, I’m struck by another common thread that links the three plays currently in production. All of them seem to be positing a theatrical response to Langston Hughes’s 1951 poem “Harlem.”...

Continuing my thoughts about the August Wilson American Century Cycle Experience, currently on stage at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Company: with Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom having now opened in PP…

In the lobby of the August Wilson house you can read a letter that Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company’s founder and ...
08/14/2025

In the lobby of the August Wilson house you can read a letter that Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company’s founder and artistic director Mark Clayton Southers wrote to August Wilson in 2002, describing his intent to establish a theater in Pittsburgh that would offer Black audiences stories that spoke to their history and lived experience. Wilson’s work, Southers writes, would be central to that mission: the first season in 2003 would feature a production of…...

In the lobby of the August Wilson house you can read a letter that Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company’s founder and artistic director Mark Clayton Southers wrote to August Wilson in 2002, descr…

We live in cynical times, Dear Reader. And there is perhaps no playwright whose work captures, with dark wit, the many d...
08/11/2025

We live in cynical times, Dear Reader. And there is perhaps no playwright whose work captures, with dark wit, the many dimensions through which contemporary cynicism expresses itself than Irish-British writer Martin McDonagh – author of, among others, the plays The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Pillowman and the films In Bruges and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. In Hangmen,...

We live in cynical times, Dear Reader. And there is perhaps no playwright whose work captures, with dark wit, the many dimensions through which contemporary cynicism expresses itself than Irish-Bri…

The title of this festival is pretty much all you need to know about its content: on tap is a collection of plays that c...
08/04/2025

The title of this festival is pretty much all you need to know about its content: on tap is a collection of plays that celebrate – and poke gentle fun at – the weird and idiosyncratic traditions and customs of our fair city. The project – spearheaded by Ensemble Actors Studio artistic director Jaime Slavinsky – tasked ten local playwrights with writing Pittsburgh-themed short plays in about a week’s time; six local directors then had another week to stage the plays, with actors cast from Slavinsky’s acting studio....

The title of this festival is pretty much all you need to know about its content: on tap is a collection of plays that celebrate – and poke gentle fun at – the weird and idiosyncratic traditions an…

If you were to ask me what I love most about Chekhov as a writer, I’d probably say that it’s his ability to reveal – thr...
07/29/2025

If you were to ask me what I love most about Chekhov as a writer, I’d probably say that it’s his ability to reveal – through dialogue and situation – how most people are wrapped up in their own little dramas, a circumstance that makes them (us?) both comically and tragically oblivious. Take, for example, the character of Irina Prozorov in his play ...

If you were to ask me what I love most about Chekhov as a writer, I’d probably say that it’s his ability to reveal – through dialogue and situation – how most people are wrapped up in their own lit…

Your Tatler has been out of town for much of the summer; the ‘burgh has welcomed her back not only with oppressive heat ...
07/28/2025

Your Tatler has been out of town for much of the summer; the ‘burgh has welcomed her back not only with oppressive heat (ugh) but also a rich offering of theater, music, and art in the coming weeks. Here’s a preview – can’t promise you’ll see me at all of these (more travel is on the calendar), but if yinz are in town, get out and enjoy some shows!...

Your Tatler has been out of town for much of the summer; the ‘burgh has welcomed her back not only with oppressive heat (ugh) but also a rich offering of theater, music, and art in the coming weeks…

The time: 1974. The place: a fishing boat bobbing in the ocean off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. The situation: the me...
06/01/2025

The time: 1974. The place: a fishing boat bobbing in the ocean off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. The situation: the mechanical shark (aka “Bruce”) being used to film Jaws has malfunctioned - yet again - and the movie’s three principal actors – Richard Dreyfuss (Hooper in the film), Roy Scheider (Brody), and Robert Shaw (Quint) – find themselves needing to fill time while the crew gets their temperamental co-star up and running again....

The time: 1974. The place: a fishing boat bobbing in the ocean off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. The situation: the mechanical shark (aka “Bruce”) being used to film Jaws has malfunctioned & #8211…

Address

Pittsburgh, PA

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Carnegie Mellon Dramaturgy posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share