Verbatim Performance and Its Possibilities

Abstract

Verbatim performance catalyzes critical engagement in audiences while fostering empathy in ethnoactors and audiences. As an arts-based research modality, verbatim performance asks an audience to critically engage with data from interviews and media artifacts via a presentational acting style that can include portraying across identity. Ethnoactors make empathic connections to the real people they portray through close analysis and replication of speech and gestural patterns. This article situates verbatim performance as an arts-based methodological tool and connects it with ethnodrama and ethnotheatre while distinguishing it from verbatim theatre. Verbatim performance and associated terminology are defined and linked to the artistic practices and theoretical writings of Anna Deavere Smith and Bertolt Brecht. The article describes the origin and creation of NYU Steinhardt’s Verbatim Performance Lab (VPL), shares VPL’s mission, and offers three examples of VPL projects from the last five years: The Kavanaugh Files, The Serena Williams Project, and Whatever You Are, Be a Good One: A Portraits US Town Hall.