Interview by: Liz Bazzoli, Managing Editor
If you’ve been following this publication over the past couple of years, and if you’ve ever submitted a piece to us, then you must know Leah Geisler.
Leah was one of the first dramaturgs I ever met and has since provided a model for what thoughtful and creative collaboration can look like. Having worked alongside Leah for the past two years and now being saddened to see her graduate, I sat down with Leah to talk about their experiences at TTS and their plans for the future.
Do you want to introduce yourself? Is there a fun fact that people who know you through The Grappler might not necessarily know?
I’m a dramaturg, a writer, an editor, an archivist, and an administrator. And, oh, fun fact–I'm a climber.
So, I think a fun question for dramaturgs is asking how you found out what dramaturgy was and how you came to it. Why dramaturgy and why TTS?
That’s a fun question because I feel like we all have such random ways of coming to dramaturgy. I was actually going to be a journalism major until around the winter of my senior year. I was dating my now-spouse, who was already an actor at TTS in their first year, and they were like, ‘I know you’re not crazy about journalism. Have you heard of this thing called dramaturgy?’
And I said, ‘No,’ because I stopped doing theatre in middle school, but they told me about it and I thought, ‘Of course, this is what I should be doing!’ It combines writing and research and it's more creative than journalism. It was a place where I really felt like I could excel.
And so I changed my entire trajectory. I graduated from high school a semester early, I got an internship at a storefront theatre in Chicago called Collaboraction, and I only applied to The Theatre School. I got in.
Did you have a specific vision for yourself going into The Theatre School?
I wish I could say that I did, but I really just wanted to be outside of my hometown. I wanted to be in a career where I could be creative and write and research, so this felt like a natural place for me to go. Now that I’ve gone through this program for four years, I've realized that it is very specialized, but the skills that we learn within it can go in a thousand different directions.
What are the different directions that dramaturgy has taken you in?
I mean, one of them, which I mentioned in my titles is being an archivist. I recently worked with Prop Thtr to make a history website for them. They've been around since the 70s and they have so many pictures and files and they've done so many shows and I wanted a place to put it publicly so that other people could see all of this cool history. So, I made this whole website.
Obviously, as part of your dramaturgy education, you’ve worked on The Grappler–what was your introduction and why did you decide to get involved?
My introduction to The Grappler was much like my introduction to The Theatre School which was just full steam ahead. I wasn't involved in The Grappler until my third year when there was a transition because of the pandemic. There was a theatre arts major who was running it, and then Liv [Garcia]. Liv wanted a co-editor, preferably someone from Dramaturgy, and Rachel reached out to me and thought I would be a good fit. I already knew Liv and knew I would love to work with Liv more. And I realized very quickly that it was a perfect fit. I did newspaper for most of high school, and I really loved it, so it just naturally stemmed from that.
I found my own little niche by wanting to write about theatre in a context that's not for production. Like, how do we write about the arts in a way that’s community-based and relevant to students in particular?
I know that you also took on a big endeavor in archiving a lot of old posts during the transition from COVID. What was that experience like?
That was a great experience. That was kind of the beginning of me realizing I really love archives. I feel like it's just a natural place for a dramaturg to be because we're so involved in history. This began because we wanted to create a whole new site and a new brand for The Grappler. And so, I thought, if we're gonna do that, then we have all this wonderful history of other Theatre School students who have created pieces for years and years. I want people to still be able to access those, but just in a way that still aligns with our new brand.
So I created a sub-website and I went through every single article since 2010 and put them all up there as blog posts. Now they're still available and people can look at them. It really made me realize the legacy of this dramaturgy program and of this school and how these people have gone on to be really important parts of Chicago theatre.
When you were entering your senior year as the leading editor, did you have any goals in mind for what you wanted the publication to look like?
I really wanted it to be community-focused, just thinking about how we can take this concept of dramaturgy–which encompasses so much more than theatre and which I think is slowly moving into the cultural zeitgeist–and apply those dramaturgical skills to basically anything.
What are the ways that you think your dramaturgy practice and relationship with dramaturgy have changed over your four years here?
I think they've changed completely. I mean, you go into dramaturgy thinking one thing and then you get opened up to all of these possibilities through different classes you take and realize dramaturgy can be so many things. One really pivotal moment for me is taking Matt [Randle-Bent]’s Civic Dramaturgy class. That completely changed dramaturgy for me, expanding it out of just research and writing and being a little gremlin in the corner who's writing on a laptop and only talking to the director.
Both of the shows I worked on have had some sort of like, bringing-in-other-people element. For Vinegar Tom we did a panel that was focused on reproductive rights because I thought, we have this wonderful opportunity to do this play that focuses on reproductive rights, focuses on the rights of women and marginalized genders, so why don't we bring it off of the stage and bring it into an actual conversation with people?
I think dramaturgy has such a potential, even our scale, to really bring real-world impact. I feel like a lot of people always say TTS is insular, even within the DePaul community. Something I think Indecent really showed is that like we as dramaturgs have the potential to make those outside connections.
That's part of the job of the dramaturg, identifying those people that could be really impacted by what they're about to see. Are we caring for them? Are we crafting this so that they
understand what's going on and so they can apply it to their lives once they leave the theatre?
Looking back at your past four years, what are the favorite moments or fundamental memories that you have?
Here's a good one– during the pandemic, you know how in Dramaturgy I you make your first actor packet? For that class, I worked on 715 Pearl Street, which was a play written by Megan Lucas. That was the first time I ever made an actor packet and I spent so long on it, I was just having the time of my life. And the actors were just living for it, like they were obsessed with it. And that was like such a great moment of, ‘This is exactly what I should be doing.’
What's your dream for The Grappler and this work that you're leaving us with?
My dream is for you to keep doing what you’re doing. I think I'm leaving it in such wonderful hands. The fact that I'm leaving this legacy of being able to do criticism and being able to publish it feels really cool. I'm excited about the legacy of The Grappler. I think it's going in a really different direction than the way that it started, but that's kind of just what The Grappler always does.
Thank you, Leah, for your years of work with The Grappler. I think I can speak for all of us in this community when I say we will miss you dearly.