In response to the heightened interest in the theory and practice of dramaturgy over the last ten years, three new publications explore the range of practices and paradigms subsumed under this term. In the foreword to their edited collection, Katalin Trencsényi and Bernadette Cochrane explain the term ‘New Dramaturgy’ as a ‘collective noun’ that ‘does not replace traditional dramaturgy: it incorporates it into a wider paradigm’ (p. xii). New dramaturgy is defined as a flexible concept, ranging across diverse practices, acknowledging coexisting contradictory ideas and theories which combine three important characteristics: ‘they are postmimetic, they embrace interculturalism and they are process-conscious’ (p. xii, italics in original).

Working from this premise, the volume presents fifteen essays by contributors from four continents under five rubrics: ‘Towards a New Theory’, ‘Text’, ‘Devising’, ‘Dance’ and ‘Spectatorship’. The contributions can be divided into essays that focus heavily on a description of practice and essays that deal with dramaturgy on a more theoretical level.

Duška Radosavljević, for example, describes a project she was involved in alongside Richard Schechner. Trying to resist the idea that the dramaturg's work is limited to isolated research, she instead developed a method of ‘performed dramaturgy’ (p. 96) that emerged during the creative process. Peter M. Boenisch offers his thoughts on the audience's experience in contemporary theatre. Drawing on his own personal experience as a spectator at three different performances, as well as on theories by Nicolas Bourriaud and Jacques Rancière, he calls for a ‘properly relational perspective on dramaturgy’ (p. 227) in order to create a meaningful and emancipated relationship with the audience.

Although the editors present the eclectic range of practices and plurality of viewpoints as quintessential to the understanding of new dramaturgy, practitioners’ reports on rehearsal practices largely remain in the descriptive mode and would benefit from developing a more critical perspective. In addition, while the refusal to ‘accept a division between “industry” and “academy”’ (p. xix) might make sense in practising dramaturgy, it hinders the volume from addressing a more specific readership.

The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy is intended ‘to serve as a primary sourcebook for dramaturgy students, practitioners, and academics’ (p. 5) and ‘to frame dramaturgy in the contemporary context, taking into consideration the new-media revolution and the increasingly interdisciplinary and intermedial nature of performance-based artworks’ (p. 5). Magda Romanska presents eighty-five articles structured in eight sections that explore different aspects of dramaturgical practice either as explicitly institutionalized profession or as implicit but important, and above all ubiquitous, practice in the theatrical (and other) arts. The first and longest section, on world dramaturgy, gives a broad insight into different approaches to dramaturgy around the world, presenting voices from, amongst others, India, China, South Africa and Iran and showing the pivotal position of dramaturgy in the infrastructure of the given theatrical landscape. Part Two offers celebratory and a few critical positions on the increasing global and globalizing role of the dramaturg as cultural liaison and intercultural curator. Part Three is dedicated to the shifting and ever-expanding role of dramaturgy in the twenty-first century, followed by an exploration into the visionary and leadership aspects of the dramaturgical role in Part Four. Particularly interesting in this section is the emphasis on the dramaturg's responsibility for advocating artistic risk-taking and social as well as gender and racial diversity in season planning. Part Five deals with questions of translation and adaptation in the field of theatre, while Part Six explores the interdisciplinary aspects of dramaturgy in areas such as music, dance, film and digital games. Moving into the terrain of diversity within performance texts, Part Seven examines dramaturgy in relation to postdramatic theatre. Eventually, Part Eight frames the dramaturg as a ‘public relations manager’ who works closely on the theatre's relationship with its audiences.

The book offers an impressive range of voices and insights into dramaturgical practice in the form of short articles (four to five pages) structured into meaningful divisions. It certainly serves its purpose as a primary sourcebook; however, it needs to be said that despite a few international contributions, the majority of essays are geographically rooted in a North American understanding and practice of dramaturgy, which limits the frame of references for an international readership.

Addressing a readership of theatre practitioners and drawing on her own experience as a dramaturg, Katalin Trencsényi turns her attention to the ‘dramaturgical toolbox’, asking, ‘how is dramaturgy done?’ and ‘how does a dramaturg operate?’ (p. xx). Not limiting her understanding of dramaturgy to the ‘traditional meaning of “composition of drama”’, she approaches the performance experience holistically and regards dramaturgy ‘as an inner flow of a dynamic system’ (p. xxi). The study is structured into three parts, covering institutional dramaturgy, production dramaturgy and dance dramaturgy, each part beginning with a chapter dedicated to a historico-theoretical overview, followed by chapters containing detailed descriptions and analyses of diverse dramaturgical practices. The heart of Trencsényi's research data is fifty interviews with theatre practitioners, including dramaturgs, directors, assistant directors and choreographers, from Australia, Europe and North America, the results of which are woven into the discussion of different dramaturgical practices.

By introducing dramaturg Mira Rafalowicz's four-stage concept (exploration of the field, creating and shaping the material, finding a shape, performance gains its own life), Trencsényi is able to paint a broad comparative picture of different Western practices while still structuring and contextualizing the multiple voices and trying to find and formulate patterns and threads that connect the practices ranging from text-based and devised theatre to dance dramaturgies. In this, the monograph offers an alternative to the often quite eclectic ways in which edited collections present accounts on rehearsal practices.

However, in some of the descriptions, as is often the danger with reflections on theatre practice, the analytical elements are lost amongst the richness of anecdotal detail. The usefulness of this user's guide, therefore, as the author warns her readers, does not lie in a prescription of a best practice, but in a description of the diversity of dramaturgical practices that show the reader the importance of trusting in and recognizing the eventual emergence of patterns of practised dramaturgy.