What is dramaturgy? Can you be taught how to do it?

1000 Ways to Ask Why is a practical how-to guide and introduction to dramaturgy and dramaturgical thinking for dramaturgs, directors, playwrights, devised theatre makers, choreographers, and performers.

This book introduces The Mosaic Scale process, a five-step system that can be dipped in and out of, as the steps don’t have to be read in a linear way. Akin to a mosaic-building approach, it is designed to help theatre makers refine and develop the bigger picture of a script or a piece of devised performance. Until now, there has been no formal technique for literary or process dramaturgy. This step-by-step process for applying dramaturgical thinking is a series of questions, exercises, and considerations to ask throughout the process of theatre making and rehearsal.

• The first how-to literary and process dramaturgy guide.


• Full of practical exercises, questions, and ways to approach dramaturgical thinking.


• Accessible exploration of a subject that can sometimes be inaccessibly academic.

This volume will be of great interest to students and dramaturgs.