Verbatim Performance Lab (VPL)

In January of 2019, I received an email from Dr. David Montgomery, who is the chair of the Educational Theatre Department at NYU, asking me if I’d be interested in an acting opportunity for Steinhardt’s Black History Day event on February 22^nd, 2019. The performance would be me reciting the famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech by Martin Luther King Jr. This opportunity was the catalyst for the first of multiple collaborations with Professor Joe Salvatore, Founder of the Verbatim Performance Lab (VPL) and Clinical Associate Professor at NYU’s Steinhardt School. I quickly replied with a “yes” to Dr. Montgomery. This opportunity was my first time working in a verbatim style of theatre. The aim of verbatim theatre as the word alludes to is a word-perfect recitation of an ethnodrama^[1] , which is another term for a script. However, beyond just the words themselves, Prof. Salvatore works in the way of coding and scoring scripts that also take into account gestural movements as well. The ethnodrama can be composed of transcriptions from interviews conducted for the work of art, and the ethnodrama can be composed of found media like it was with the MLK piece. It is important to note that once that ethnodrama or script is performed, it then becomes ethnotheatre, which I’ll describe in a bit more detail later on.

First, Professor Salvatore and I listened to a recording of the speech to for cadence, stutters, pauses, pitch, vibrato, tone, tempo, and any subtle regionalism qualities, e.g., accents. We then watched a recording of Dr. King giving his speech to match the vocals with gesticulation. In verbatim work, it can be a fine line between dramatic representation through ethnographic techniques and full out Saturday Night Live satire. The best way to differentiate the two is through a rigorous preparation process where the pauses or silence in a person’s speech have just as much meaning as the words it is sandwiched in between.

After we reviewed the found media (videos and audio recordings of the speech), we began coding^[2] the script through a process known as transcription or scoring. We developed codes for certain gestures that were reoccurring. We would also score the script for inflictions or down-glides in the speech. Working in a verbatim theater style is a little less about what is happening with the inner psychological life of a character and more about how the inner life is being performed and or performative^[3] on the outer more physical world. For classically trained actors, like myself, this is a little different than the Stanislavsky method^[4] I was taught at Southern Methodist University. Although there was an adjustment, I found myself understanding the psychology more by studying the physical and analyzing patterns or changes in patterns around certain moments of the speech. I include photos and a video of my performance from this event.

Additionally, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with Prof. Salvatore and VPL several times during 2019 and into 2020 around verbatim performances of democratic candidates' speeches. In the first engagement, titled The Democratic Field, I was Tulsi Gabbard, and in the second engagement of the same series, but on a different occasion, I was Mayor Peter Buttigieg. However, I didn’t realize it at the time. Both events constructed in a way in which none of the actors knew what speech we would recite. We were emailed all 10 of the statements ahead of time and were encouraged to prepare to read all of them on the night(s) of the performance(s), although we would only receive the speech on a singular candidate. On the night of the performance, we were handed a random envelope with two policy statements inside from the same candidate but on different issues. To add a layer of intrigue, not only was it randomized for the actors, but the audience also didn’t know who the candidates were behind the speeches either. At the end of the statements, the audience voted via silent ballot on which candidate they would vote for solely based on the statement. I participated in this on two occasions and learned how to perform verbatim on the fly using the transcription methods Prof. Salvatore taught me.

The last iteration of this that I participated in called Guess the Candidate (GTC), which has some similarities to The Democratic Field with regards to the content. One key difference, however, is that the actors knew in advance who they would be portraying and asked to memorize the speech in advance. I was Pete Buttigieg in the GTC series, which was a very eye-opening experience with regards to the idea of intersectionality^[5]. Although I share a queer lens and a veteran lens with Mayor Pete, we still have some fundamental differences, particularly when you think of his inability to connect with communities of color. The polls would later reveal this to be true. GTC was also unique in that it had a live performance component at the Collegiate School in Manhattan as well as a studio-recorded component at NYU-TV studios. I should note that when the audience would vote for their candidate, I never won the popular vote until we performed at the school where we performed in front of students. Before this performance, we mostly performed in front of adults. The second component recorded at NYU studios turned into a digital game that simulated the in-person audience experience where viewers could vote on who they thought the speaker was. I’ve included work samples and articles from this project.

^[1] Saldaña, J. (2011). Fundamentals of qualitative research. New York: Oxford University Press.

^[2] Saldaña, J. (2016). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. Los Angeles, CA, CA: SAGE.

^[3] Kopelson, K. (2002). Dis/Integrating the Gay/Queer Binary: "Reconstructed Identity Politics" for a Performative Pedagogy. College English, 65(1), 17-35. doi:10.2307/3250728

^[4] Hapgood, E. R., & Stanislavsky, K. (2017). An actor prepares. Place of publication not identified: Read Books.

^[5] Gross, C., Gottburgsen, A., & Phoenix, A. (2016). Education systems and intersectionality. In Gross C. & Hadjar A. (Eds.), Education systems and inequalities: International comparisons (pp. 51-72). Bristol: Bristol University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1t892m0.9