Verbatim Theatre is created by interviewing people and using their words to create scripts. This class will have a dual focus. You will be developing a script through verbatim theatre practices, including interviewing people and developing the skills of creating a script from your transcripts. Alongside that, we will be examining the ethics and efficacy of verbatim theatre, especially in relation to its role in the landscape of democratic praxis and thought. We will also be studying in depth the work of two to three leading verbatim theatre practitioners. Through studying verbatim theatre practices both critically and practically, you will develop a deepened knowledge and skill set surrounding this unique and powerful modality of new play development. The focus of our own in class verbatim script will be the Return to Faith journey, building from the rich research and publishing of BYU scholar Jessica Zurcher in the School of Communications. Zurcher’s scholarship emerged from acknowledging there is a great deal of study on the journey away from faith, but little to no scholarship on the return to faith having left it, a gap her work has met. This class will be the beginning of developing a full-length fully staged verbatim performance that explores the return to faith narrative. At the conclusion of the class we will share a staged reading of the work-in-progress script we have developed together to explore the return to faith journey. If you have any questions about the class, please reach out to Professor Alexandra Mackenzie Johns.