Moore / Jones Challenge

A special election for the United States Senate in Alabama is scheduled for December 12, 2017, to fill a seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Republican candidate Roy Moore says there’s no need to debate the Democratic candidate Doug Jones.

In lieu of a debate, co-creators Joe Salvatore and Keith R. Huff selected media clips from both candidates representing issues important to the state of Alabama and the nation at large and arranged them into a transcribed, scored performance script.

Actor Ryan Conarro then conducted an intensive study of the script and media clips, and he performs them verbatim using Moore’s and Jones’ original words, speech patterns, gestures, and movements.

The experiment asks viewers to consider the following:

What happens to your perception of the candidates’ positions on an issue when another body inhabits their words and gestures?
Does this affect your opinion about which candidate should be elected to fill the U.S. Senate seat for Alabama?

A new clip was released each day, starting on December 4. After five days of clips, a full compilation of the "debate" became available on Monday, December 11, 2017, the day before the special election in Alabama.