Meeting Grief at the Crossroads: Ritual Dramaturgy

Jen Shook and I will present our thoughts on grief as it relates to dramaturgy at the 2024 Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) conference.

If a crossroads is a liminal space, a space of encounter, exchange, and change–a place between and a place of convergence–then grief is a crossroads. No wonder such a place often hosts the altars, the memorials, a place both sacred and so everyday, a place both of pause and of passing through … what then is the dramaturgy of grief at the crossroads? This performance presentation offers a ritual for the crossroads of grief, a meeting place where we learn how to connect through grief rather than letting it divide us from the world and each other.