Dear Dramaturgs...

Even though you have been trained to be lean, mean researching machines, frankly...research is the last thing anyone will hire you to do. Everyone assumes that the writers and designers have done their own homework, so why would they hire someone ELSE to do research? That's just another person on payroll. And, whatever research jobs you will get will probably be part-time and underpaid. Why? Because there is no union for researchers. You will live your lives pseudo-employed, without health care and definately without benefits.

So, here are some other options you should look into:

1. Story Editing
2. Story Analysis
3. Development
4. Literary Agency
5. Literary Management (not anything like what Lit Managers do in the theater)
6. Assistant Directing
7. Writing!
8. Producing
9. Script Reader/Writing Coverage

The best skill you will acquire in your pedogogical training is your sense of story and how to make it stronger! Without that, you will fail. Your boss will lose faith in you if every script you pass on to them SUCKS and you certainly won't get considered for a Creative Exec. job. Heck no!

BUT if you can look at a script that your boss gives you to read and give him/her a succinct synopsis and log line as well intelligent and articulate criticism, you will go far. The more detailed development notes you can give, the more marketable you become. You can save the company money by being multi-functional and by catching potential deal-breaking plotfalls before they become deal-breakers.

We are marketable. Our skills can be used here. But we have to travel incognito.