Theater programs the world over list the writer, director, cast members, designers, lighting specialists and such in their credits. Lately in Japan, though, a new role has begun to appear in among those credits — that of "dramaturge."

Check your dictionary, however, and it will likely tell you this word describes "a specialist in theatrical production" — which could be said of many others, too. But dig a bit deeper, and you'll find that this recent addition to those credits has venerable roots — back in Ancient Greece, no less, where dramatourgia was the word for "play workers."

So it was with expectations both ancient and modern that I recently went to meet 40-year-old Tokyo-born Kaku Nagashima, who had already told me that he was the first person to work as a dramaturge in Japan when he embarked on that career about five years ago. However, he said that in Germany's vibrant and booming theater scene there are now many dramaturges involved at all stages of the drama process.