Sitrep 5: Feb. 23, 2025:

On Monday, I planned to write about Amiri Baraka’s quote in the Colbert article regarding revolution and the Black Arts Movement (“the holiness of life is the constant possibility of widening the consciousness”). It’s a good quote, and perhaps I’ll return to it at some point, but by Wednesday, our TikTok discussion was taking up other space in my brain. Full disclosure – I rarely use social media, and I’ve never used TikTok. That being said, I’m also taking an Arts Marketing course at present, which has me currently thinking about show branding and all aspects of promotion. Two things have stayed with me this week from Wednesday’s class.

Thing #1: TikTok Dramaturg/Dramaturgy

There is a lot to love about this concept. Ricardo’s phrasing was novel for me, and since it is undefined territory (in my mind at least), it is a concept that seems pregnant with interesting possibilities. The first possibility I see implied by the dramaturgy epithet is for there to be a greater intentionality around social media’s connection to theatrical events, allowing social media to serve as an extension of the conversation that the production/play is already having. In every collaborative work there are a lot of competing agendas. The battle over who gives voice to what particular aspect of a play’s myriad meanings has been exponentially magnified (and perhaps co-opted) by each member of the production’s ready access to social media. While giving immediate and public voice to any and all conversations is certainly democratic, the free-for-all can also lead to social media agendas that may dwarf the central raisons d'être for bringing a group of people together to produce a play.  Our class session on Wednesday was perhaps a small and low stakes example of this phenomenon. If one thinks about how little we talked about the actual play we were discussing and how much we talked about Tik Tok, it is easy to see how the artistic products themselves can be easily thrust into the background. It is unlikely that a Tik Tok Dramaturg would quell this entirely, but…a designated person who is skilled at social media, branding, and dramaturgy working on a production might be able to unify social media messaging in a way that aligns with the play’s content and brings people together into a particular conversation that the production wishes to stimulate. That feels like a win to me.

It also feels like a win to have a designated person taking responsibility for this important parallel aspect of theatre making, because the actors, directors, designers, technicians, etc. have a job to do already, and social media is often “peer-pressured” onto those existing tasks. And sure, “every member of team or company is in marketing,” but there are also a finite amount of hours to accomplish primary tasks, and if a TikTok Dramaturg was coordinating one of them as an expert in their field, it would both lessen the strain on those who are not social media experts and ostensibly raise the quality and intentionality of the social media offerings.

There are obviously more TikTok Dramaturgy possibilities that could be discussed, but just the naming of a TikTok Dramaturg as a topic of discourse feels like a fruitful opening for more exploration.

Thing #2: “Cashing in on FOMO”

The second phrase that was spoken in class and stuck out to me this week, is perhaps the flip side of social media. In the rush to be on trend and capitalize on markets that others are successfully exploiting, I do wonder about the ethics of “cashing in on FOMO.” It’s now pretty widely known that social media is creating addicts and at least contributing to such serious mental health issues like anxiety, anti-social behaviors, and even suicide (see here: NIH). Before we anoint the next generation of TikTok Dramaturgs, should we at least ask the question if “cashing on FOMO” is aligned with any kind of personal or company values? Thomas Davenport and Jeanne Harris in their article “What People Want (And How to Predict It)” state what we all know to be true about human behavior: “As soon as it’s clear that money can be made using these…tools, their use will undoubtedly grow despite some observers’ moral and ethical qualms.” Yet much of the discussion we’ve been having as a class - care of actors, care of students, what to teach, what kinds of representation should be included in our canon – these are ethical and moral conversations. Anecdotally, I feel like the variety and frequency of ethical discussions in theatrical praxis has risen greatly since I’ve been a practicing theatre maker. Perhaps because of that when Ricardo described TikTok as having the most successful social media algorithm to keep folks scrolling and lose track of time, it gave me pause. How fast, I wonder, should theatre producers be rushing to “cash in” on people’s addictions? Is there a moral conversation to be had here about what this kind of marketing is doing to our potential customers, or if one were so inclined to view them more personally, our community members? 

Bonus Blog Related Fun:

-        A Simulacrum is the latest play by playwright Lucas Hnath. I saw this production last time I was in New York, and it was a very memorable theatrical experience that blurred the lines of theatre, performance studies, and magic shows: https://atlantictheater.org/production/a-simulacrum/ 

-  Two-time Tony Award winning actor Christian Borle’s playbill bio from Some Like It Hot. Note his social media handles at the end of the bio:

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