On September 27, VPL Director Joe Salvatore and Education and Outreach intern Lilly Stannard visited the United Nations International School (UNIS) for a workshop with students in Jack Dod’s 7th grade drama class. Jack has worked with VPL as an actor, and he uses the verbatim performance of interview data with this students as a way to explore character creation.
Before the workshop, students had already viewed excerpts of Her Opponent and Fires in the Mirror, so they were ready to work with Joe to come up with their own topic and research question. Through a facilitated discussion, the students decided to explore gun violence by working to answer this question: In 2019, how do people feel about gun violence and what would they like to see happen in the future?
Photo by Jack Dod
1. Describe an experience that you or someone close to you has had with a gun.
2. What is your earliest memory of gun violence as we know it today?
3. What do you think causes a person to purchase a gun?
4. What do you think causes a person to want to commit a violent action using a gun?
5. Who is affected the most by gun violence?
6. How do you feel about gun violence as a political issue?
7. If you had the power to change the laws about guns and gun violence what would you do and why?
8. Do you have anything else to say about the topics we’ve been discussing?
9. Do you have any questions for me?
The students conducted interviews, and then selected a 2-minute section of the interview to transcribe using VPL’s scored transcription style, which is inspired by the work of Anna Deavere Smith and effectively notates a speaker’s cadence by taking a hard return in the transcription when the speaker pauses.
During a follow up visit to the class on October 15, Joe and VPL Affiliated Artist Laura Cabochan demonstrated how to coach an actor for a verbatim portrait, emphasizing careful listening to the audio of the interview and focusing on unique vowel and consonant sounds, tempo of speech, and upgliding/downgliding. Students then broke into smaller coaching groups, and Joe, Laura, and Jack offered assistance when needed.
Later in October, students presented their portraits in class as part of the summative assessment for this unit of study around character creation.
If you’re interested in hosting a similar workshop at your school, you can contact VPL at verbatimperformancelab@nyu.edu.