The purpose of my project is to capture a handful of women’s experiences, hit the pause button, and arrange them into a performance to allow us the opportunity to evaluate where we might go next before the 2020 election. The project, in four phases, will take twelve months to complete. Phase I will be from June 1, 2019 – August 30, 2019 and will include the recruitment of participants and the interviewing process. Phase II will be from September 1, 2019- December 31, 2019 where I will transcribe the interviews, create the script, and conduct the first reading. Phase III will be from January 1, 2020 – February 28, 2020 where I will present a reading of a 30-40-minute play with a thirty-minute post-show discussion in each respective community. Phase IV from March 1, 2020-May 1, 2020, I will refine the play and submit the project for defense.
Participants. I plan to interview 15-20 women in New York City, and 15-20 women in Phoenix. My hope is to gather a broad cross-section of the personal experiences of women in each city on the topic. As Arizona is a staunch Red State and New York an unwavering Blue State, I believe New York City and Phoenix will offer a strong cross section of the political polarization I am looking for. As I have strong ties to each city, I plan to utilize my resources to reach out to each community. I plan to recruit participants in both cities through Facebook, Craigslist, and Reddit posts, as well as enlisting colleagues and contacts outside the university to employ their list-serv accounts and contacts. Also, I plan to reach out to political and social organizations in each city which may include: the New York Republican Club, Manhattan Young Democrats, The Jewish Community Center, NOW-NYC.org, Proudtobelatina.org, League of Professional Theatre Women, NOW –PHX, the Central Republican Women of Phoenix, the Arizona Foundation of Women, HOPE Women’s Center, Maricopa County Young Republicans, and the Conservative Political Action Union-AZ.
Interview Process. Participants must self-identify as women, be eighteen years or older, and want to talk about their experience after the 2016 election. Each interview will last 45-60 minutes and will be video recorded. Each participant will sign a consent form prior to the interview and be asked how they would like to be identified in the scripting process. This allows for participants to remain anonymous, use a pseudonym, or use their real name. Each participant will be asked the same series of questions/prompts in the same order.
The prompts are a mixture of questions and commands, structured in such a way as to encourage a logical flow to the conversation that can yield data in response to the research questions. The first question…allows a relationship to develop between the participant and the interviewer, while also functioning as an assessment tool to reveal how open the participant will be during the interview. (Salvatore, 2018, p. 270)
These may include: Describe the circumstances surrounding your birth. What woman do you admire today and why? Describe your current involvement with politics. Describe a moment about the 2016 election that stands out in your mind. How are you maintaining your identity in this current political climate? What do you think are the most important issues facing the country today? How do you personally deal with someone you disagree with politically? What would the ideal future for women in our country look like? Do you have anything else that you’d like to say about the topics we’ve been discussing? Do you have any questions for me? After the interview, I will ask whether there are any sections of the interview that they would prefer not to be used? If so, I will make a note of this and I will not include those sections in my transcription.
Transcription. After the interview, I will watch the video. I will select 2-3 minute sections of the interview that I feel are theatrically compelling and address my research questions. I plan to follow Salvatore’s (2018) method of transcription “listening for complete stories, unique explanations, surprising declarations, and struggles for meaning because these ways of sharing information will appeal to an audience in performance” (p. 274). I will only transcribe and code these continuous sections creating my dataset. I will use the hard return transcription method where any time the participant pauses, I create a new line. All the disfluencies of speech will be preserved in the transcription, which means I will include all the pauses and filler words. I will then code the dataset by identifying individual and cultural themes that address my research questions and the attitudes and experiences of women after the 2016 election.
Scripting. Once the transcription is complete, I will begin the scripting process to create a 30-40-minute play. I will begin by reading my dataset out loud. Robin Soans (2008), a verbatim theatre playwright, cautions ethnodramatists to avoid “a random collection of monologues” that may fatigue an audience (as cited in Saldaña, 2011, p.115). To avoid this, I will begin to cut and paste the sections together based on overlapping or contradictory ideas creating what Saldaña calls a “collective journey” (p.117). Further, I plan to utilize a “rotation plot” where character’s stories weave together through monologue and dialogue (Saldaña, 2011, p.118). I plan to employ my performance training and understanding of dramatic action and theatrical aesthetics to create a script that will appeal to the audience in performance. Once I have a rough draft of the script, I will ask the advisors on board to offer feedback and gain an outside understanding of the work I am creating. Script refining will continue utilizing their feedback.
Readings and Post-show Discussion. In December 2019, I will invite actors from New York City to present an informal first reading of the script at New York University. I will invite the participants, advisors (a live Facebook video recording link will be provided to the Arizona participants and advisors), and general community. After the reading, there will be a post-show discussion conducted by Dr. Teresa Fisher (2014) author of Post-Show Discussions in New Play Development to help establish the format and practice of the post-show discussions for the staged readings. The crafting of the post-show discussion is essential to its success. One strategy that we are looking to incorporate is of giving the audience a question during the curtain speech that they will ponder through the reading. The goal of the post-show discussions will be to create a strategy that will aid in enhancing and supporting the ethnodrama for future performances.
Strategies do not abdicate the development process to audiences or attempt to lessen the role of the playwright, but recognize the value of hearing from the audience experience and of supporting – not coddling or demeaning — the playwright. Such strategies also allow both audiences and playwrights to benefit from these post-show events. (Fisher, 2014, p. 116)
The official staged readings for this project will be in early 2020. In each respective city, I will cast and direct the readings. I will invite the participants, advisors, and general community. After each reading, I will facilitate the post-show discussion and audio record the actor’s, participant’s, and audience’s responses. These discussions will serve to further develop the play.