Dramaturgy is the study of dramatic composition and the representation of the main elements of drama on the stage. The role of a dramaturg in the field of modern dramaturgy is to help realize the multifaceted world of the play for a production using information from the script, playwright, and the context in which the play was written. It is a dramaturg's job to assist the director and playwright, especially if the culture of the play is not fully experienced by these people.

The term first appears in the eponymous work Hamburg Dramaturgy (1767–69) by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Lessing composed this collection of essays on the principles of drama while working as the world's first dramaturge at the Hamburg National Theatre of Abel Seyler. Dramaturgy is distinct from play writing and directing, although the three may be practiced by one individual. Some dramatists combine writing and dramaturgy when creating a drama. Others work with a specialist, called a dramaturge, to adapt a work for the stage.

Dramaturgy may also be broadly defined as "adapting a story to actable form." Dramaturgy gives a performance work foundation and structure. Often the dramaturge's strategy is to manipulate a narrative to reflect the current Zeitgeist through cross-cultural signs, theater- and film-historical references to genre, ideology, questions of gender and racial representation, etc., in the dramatization.

The role of dramaturgy as a practice-based as well as practice-led discipline was first held by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, in the 18th century. The Theater of Hamburg engaged him for some years for a position today known as a "dramaturge". He was the first to occupy this role in European theater and described his task as that of a "dramatic judge" ("dramatischer Richter"), one who must assess the most compelling and appropriate means of staging a particular theatrical work. At the time, Germany was less of a nation and more of a collection of principalities. Lessing was hired at the newly created national theatre to promote a distinctly German artistic culture. Although he only spent two years in the position, Lessing's laid the foundations for future dramaturgical work. From 1767 to 1770, Lessing published a series of critical commentaries, Hamburg Dramaturgy (Hamburgische Dramaturgie). These works analyzed, criticized and theorized the current state of German theater, making Lessing the father of modern dramaturgy.

Following Lessing's Hamburgische Dramaturgie and Laokoon and Hegel's Aesthetics (1835–38), many subsequent authors, including Friedrich Hölderlin, Johann von Goethe, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Thornton Wilder, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams, reflected on the stage language of plays as a distinctive art form.

German playwright Gustav Freytag attempted to synthesize the components of modern dramaturgy in his 1863 book The Technique of the Drama, published in English in 1894. Known for its outline of the principles of dramatic structure, including the arc of dramatic tension and resolution referred to as Freytag's Pyramid, The Technique of the Drama is often considered the blueprint for the first Hollywood screenwriting manuals. The Technique of Play Writing (1915) by Charlton Andrews, refers to European and German traditions of dramaturgy and understanding dramatic composition.

These are examples that define theatrical tradition throughout history.

A foundational work in the Western theatrical tradition is Poetics by Aristotle (written c. 335 BCE), which analyzes the genre of tragedy. Aristotle considers Oedipus Rex (c. 429 BCE) as the quintessential dramatic work. He analyzes the relations among character, action, and speech, gives examples of good plots, and considers the role of audience response as an aspect of theatrical form. His "rules" are referred to today as "Aristotelian drama". In Poetics, Aristotle discusses many key concepts of Greek drama, including the moment of tragic recognition (anagnorisis) and the purgation of audience feelings of pity and fear (catharsis).