Q&A: Ken Cerniglia ’89

(dram•a•tur•gy)

/ The art or technique of dramatic composition and theatrical representation. /

Ken Cerniglia ’89 is a veteran dramaturg, writer and creative executive. He dramaturged the eight-time Tony Award-winning play and Best Musical Hadestown, and five-time Tony Award-winning Peter and the Starcatcher.

What does a dramaturg do?

The practice of dramaturgy was founded by Gotthold Lessing, a playwright and in-house critic at the Hamburg State Theatre in Germany in the 18th century. It is a longstanding practice integrated into all state theatres in Central and Eastern Europe, and many in the United States, with more than 2,000 dramaturgs worldwide. A typical production always includes a writer, director, and dramaturg.

However, the dramaturgical approach has existed since the beginning of theatre from the time of Aristotle. It asks the question: how does theory meet practice? Like a theatre critic, a dramaturg applies theatre theory, history, and cultural knowledge to evaluate a theatre work. A theatre critic, however, is a journalist; their job is to describe, analyze, interpret, and evaluate what is happening on stage. Dramaturgs work inside the theatre as the production develops, bringing skills to create a better output before it is made available to the public and critic evaluation.

Was musical theatre your first love?

It was. I went to school at St. John Eudes, which had a big children’s choir that I joined as early as possible. Our director, Don Hollingsworth, wrote original plays combining catalog, church, and popular music. My 8th grade claim to fame was playing a farmer in the play and singing John Denver’s “The Garden Song”. That performance still lives on VHS somewhere at my parents’ house (which I have tried to find to burn it!).

At Crespi, I was involved in student government, ran track and cross country, and was the class valedictorian. I was introduced to musical theatre by Fr. Jay Comerford, who was a huge fan. He was also

Q&A: KEN CERNIGLIA ’89

the campus minister and incorporated music into our retreats and Kairos. Senior year I was cast as the lead in On the Town. The play was canceled due to a scheduling conflict with the gym. I was crushed!

When I went to college at UCSD, I took my first Intro to Theatre Class. I ended up double majoring in Psychology and Theatre. While there, I acted in several productions, including Little Shop of Horrors as Seymour. I also directed and produced the student musical group The Players. Senior year I worked in the box office at the La Jolla Playhouse and decided to concentrate on theatre. I took my first dramaturgy class at Catholic University, where I obtained a master’s degree in Theatre History & Criticism. I received a Ph.D. in Theatre History & Criticism from the University of Washington.

How did you end up on Broadway?

I worked for Broadway Disney for 16 years, a company founded by a storyteller in 1923. Disney pioneered the art of music, working with and supporting animation. The practice of dramaturgy is bringing knowledge of structures of meaning to storytelling. There are many dramaturgical considerations. What are the character relationships? Where is it set? What is the context? How does it relate to other plays that came before? What issues in society does the play address? The analogy I like to make about my profession is that it’s like being an editor at a publishing house who works with writers helping them improve their craft.

I work primarily with writers, dramatists, playwrights for plays, and composers for musical theatre, but I also work with directors, set designers, and actors.

Cerniglia and Anaïs Mitchell

What productions have you worked on, and which is your favorite?

The first Broadway show I worked on for Disney was Tarzan in 2006. Then came The Little Mermaid, Newsies, Aladdin, Peter & the Starcatcher, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Freaky Friday, High School Musical, and the Marvel Spotlight plays.

The musical closest to my heart is Peter and the Starcatcher (the prequel to Peter Pan). I worked on it from the very beginning in novel form. It was the first play produced by Disney Theatrical and the first not adapted from an existing dramatic work. Most of the work we did at Disney was adapting films to the stage, but Starcatcher came from a book, so we created the dramatic structure from this book.

Tell us about your work on the Tony-award- winning Hadestown.

Hadestown was a freelance project I worked on with the New York Theatre Workshop, based on a concept album by Anaïs Mitchell. It was challenging because Mitchell was a singer-songwriter, not a dramatist. It required my dramaturgical skillset to craft it into a legitimate stage musical. We won eight Tonys in 2019, including Best Musical.

How did it feel to receive a shout-out on national TV at the Tonys?

It was surreal because it was my first time attending the award ceremony. I was sitting in the audience at Radio City Musical Hall, thinking “Did she (Anaïs Mitchell) just say my name from the podium?” Then my phone started blowing up from all my friends and family who heard the shout-out at the awards show!

What’s your favorite part about your job?

I love working with artists, and I love solving problems. Now that I am freelance full-time, I love working on various projects. I enjoyed my time at Disney and the talented people there. However, it was still within the

Q&A continues

Disney wheelhouse. Now I have a broader canvas on which to work.

Do you have input in other aspects of the production besides the script and research?

At Disney, I was also part of creative development. I can speak artist, and I can speak producer. I’m often the catalyst between the artists and the producer. I also dramaturged the Disney merchandise, selecting products and souvenirs to be developed from the script. For now, I’m focused on creating the work. Still, I will advise producers in other production areas so those people can do their jobs.

What’s your biggest challenge?

It is at the beginning of the production, getting to know the cast and crew and earning their trust. I come in with a critical apparatus that can be perceived as evaluation and judgment. But they soon learn that my job is to nurture, cheerlead, and develop the work with the artist because we are all on the same team. So rather than give notes, I ask questions so my collaborators can provide the correct answers.

What is your favorite Sondheim musical?

Sweeney Todd!

What’s your favorite contemporary musical?

Do you mean besides Hadestown? There’s a new one coming out that I am a big fan of called Lempicka, based on the artist Tamara de Lempicka. Although relatively unknown, she revolutionized the art world.

What’s next?

I have co-written a musical called Atlantis, which premiered in Richmond, Virginia in April of 2019 before the pandemic. It is a fictional account of the final three days of the lost city of Atlantis before falling into the sea. I’m currently co-writing the book based on the musical, and we just had a concert based on the music in New York. I’m very excited about the project. We have people interested in investing, and the goal is to take it to Broadway. there are so many behind-the-scenes specialties like costume design, set design and building, staging, choreography, and direction, to name a few. You can find your passion once you give it a try.

We hear that you are an amazing actor and vocalist. Do you still perform?

(Laughing loudly) Who said that? I was a good performer; I could sing, dance, and act, and I loved doing it. But I had a college acting teacher who said, “You know your vocation is to be an actor if you wake up in the morning and go to bed at night thinking only of acting. And if you think of something else, you should do that instead because acting is tough!”

What advice would you give to Crespi students who are interested in a career in theatre?

Try it out! Participate in a play at Crespi or join a local community theatre program. Studying theatre in college is an excellent medium for whatever you want to do in life. The student learns about plays, history, craft, collaboration, and the whole shebang! Besides acting,

So much of your story connects with the Crespi man statement, particularly community and being a life-long learner. How did Crespi nurture that?

To bring it back to Crespi, I have used everything I learned there in my job and career. A play can be about any subject matter, so all the subjects I took in high school were vital in what was to become my profession. I learned to “learn” at Crespi. I learned to be curious, follow my passion, be challenged in thought, and always push further. These were all skills I developed as a Celt and continue to use in my life and career. Another important skill I learned in high school was the value of teamwork. Whether in student government, campus ministry, or athletics, I learned how to be part of a community and my role within that community. I do theatre because I think that when we bring the community together with a single focus, we are not only entertained but also provoked to consider the human condition. What is just and unjust in the world, and what will we do about it? These are all values I developed at Ahead of his time, senior Ken Crespi that I now use in musical Cerniglia rockin’ the Cabana look theatre and in my personal life. .