A Personal Process of Restorying Lived Experience into a Proto-Verbatim Performance

Abstract

This chapter discusses specific dramaturgical and theatrical decisions made to transform a proto-verbatim drama based on the lived experience of women casual academics into a piece of theatre. It particularly focuses on how the venue, staging, costuming, visual and sound effects, and direction, were designed to ‘make the everyday strange’ (Waters, Int Rev. Philos 30(2):137, 2011) or to startle the audience out of complacency and comfort. YouTube videos and photographs of a performance are employed throughout the chapter to demonstrate the artistic characteristics of proto-verbatim theatre; evoke a fully embodied response; and demonstrate that ‘if the research is important enough to engage the audience it will justify the time making the piece effective theatre as well as good research’ (Anderson, NJ Drama Aust J 31(1):79–91, 2007, p. 87).