The Verbatim Performance Lab emerged following the success of Her Opponent, a re-staging of excerpts from the 2016 U. S. Presidential debates with gender-reversed casting, created by Maria Guadalupe (INSEAD) and Joe Salvatore (NYU Steinhardt). That performance premiered at the Provincetown Playhouse in January 2017 and then went on to enjoy an Off Broadway run at The Jerry Orbach Theater. A full archival video of the performance is available here.

The ability of Her Opponent to stimulate conversation amongst its audience members inspired the creation of the lab. We use verbatim performance and documentary theatre techniques to examine what we think we know and understand about preconceived notions and biases but through a new and different lens and under a more penetrating light.

The Lab continues to produce content that challenges accepted political, cultural, and social understandings, while embracing the philosophy that social change emerges from dialogue, not monologue. We hope that educators and activists will find this content useful in their teaching and organizing.

Joe Salvatore, clinical associate professor of educational theatre at NYU-Steinhardt, directs the lab using over 20 years of experience creating original documentary theatre, verbatim performance, and ethnodrama.

We welcome new collaborators from across disciplines and perspectives to engage with us in conversations about potential avenues of exploration. To discuss ideas for a collaboration, please contact us at verbatimperformancelab@nyu.edu.

Photo credit: Richard Termine for The New York Times