Dramatism

Dramatism is a very complex theory with a very interpretive perspective. The basic idea is that everything in life can be viewed as drama, complete with a plot, actors, setting etc. It also describes three lenses with which we can view life: identification, dramatistic pentad, and guild-redemption cycle.
The idea behind identification is that if there is no identification (the audience doesn't connect with the speaker) there will be no persuasion (you won't successfully persuade the audience.) The best example of this I could think of was when I was sitting in a lecture my freshman year at Malone College, and the professor was going on and on about Shakespeare and something I wasn't really interested in. Then he explained how as an undergrad he hated studying Shakespeare, especially the play we were looking at. He told a story about how someone explained it to him in a different way, and afterwards he fell in love with it. After he told that, I identified with how, yes, I hated studying it, but the second explanation definitely cast a different light on the play.
The idea behind the dramatistic pentad actually sets things up as five elements of drama: the act, the scene, the agent, the agency, and the purpose. It helps to discover the motivation behind the speaker. A good example of this is when in one of my politics classes we were told to look at speeches this way when studying them. For example, when President Bush was speaking, we had to set the speech up as who was talking, what was happening, where it was taking place, how it was happening, and why it was happening. Doing this made it easier to understand why something was happening.
We didn't spend any time studying the guilt-redemption cycle in class, but basically it says that the purpose behind all public speaking is to get rid of our sense of guilt that is part of human nature.