Quotable Me - the Power of Speech Workshop

Verbatim theatre is theatre made from real people’s words. It is a “platform for public conversation about eternal human issues.”

Verbatim theatre is typically created from transcripts of interviews with people who are connected to a common incident or subject. The interviews are then edited into a performance text.

Even though verbatim theatre uses methods comparable to journalism, its goals are different. It tells stories that are not necessarily immediate in the way that journalistic stories are, but it tells them with more perspective. There will be a focus on finding the theatricality, and the characters, in the story. Verbatim theatre allows a variety of voices and viewpoints to be represented in a vividly immediate way.

The workshop will give students the confidence to stand up, to find their voice and be heard, gaining valuable life skills such as confidence and positivity.

The Process:

• Students will choose a topic or event as their source. Something not too confronting yet with enough depth, something they all relate to on some level. For example freedom (freedom to choose their bedtime, freedom of speech, freedom from oppression, from restrictions, from judgment, pressure, etc.). They will then individually write a short piece, opinion or experience based monologue. These will not be signed but will be collected.
• Students will divide into groups and pairs, some will conduct and record (in writing) interviews on the given topic while others (groups) can record a debate or create a scene with ‘characters’
• Then all notes will be collected and performed/read by randomly selected students.
• They will be bringing someone else to life through this process and it’s important to convey their thoughts and words exactly and see how someone else interprets their words.
• The next step will be using these speeches, interviews, and scenes to see how they can be put together in a theatrical and informative, yet entertaining way.
• Putting it all together is the final step, seeing how it interconnects.

Outcomes:
In this workshop students will explore the way they speak, their dialogue will contain all the ums, pauses, slang, regionalisms, repeated words, and other speech mannerisms that happen in conversation. They will gain an understanding of speech.

• Interviewing/questioning.
• Structuring
• Teamwork, conflict resolution, and problem-solving skills
• They will be able to take in the entire picture or at least a wide range of viewpoints.
• They will realize how closely connected we are, how interlinked our society really is and that given the right, or in some cases, the wrong set of circumstances we can all do sometimes amazing and sometimes horrific acts.

Reality is stranger than fiction. Human stories are interchangeable. Hopefully, by the end of the workshop student will have gained more tolerance and empathy as well as hope for the future and confidence in themselves.

No prior knowledge needed.
  Bring a pen and paper, an open mind and lots of opinions, as well as a bottle of water, a snack and a sense of playfulness.