A mothering dramaturgy: the creative co-practices of mothering and directing in contemporary rehearsal rooms

ABSTRACT This essay considers the conceptual diversity in the current discourse on dramaturgy within contemporary theater making and adds an embodied maternal dramaturgy. Featuring interviews with six prominent women directors who are mothers, the essay presents key mothering moments and their presence in rehearsal practice. The essay highlights the corporeal knowledge of the postpartum director, and the kinds of adjustments to practices and work models that emerge from the needs of the director as mother. We present a mothering dramaturgy as a political act: a process that disrupts and unsettles divisions of labor, social constructs, and commonly accepted notions of body.