ABSTRACT
Scripting a verbatim play differs in many ways from writing a fictional piece of work (created from the writer’s imagination), but a playwright’s ultimate aim is always to produce a dramatic piece that will engage the hearts and minds of an audience. This chapter outlines some of the differences between the two forms of writing and discusses how a verbatim playwright can structure a script and identify decisions they must take during the writing process that impact the final production in the form of performance logistics and also artistic and ethical representation.
One of the greatest challenges for a verbatim playwright is to learn how to work with what can appear in transcribed interviews to be narrators speaking with little interruption and often at some length about the subject the play addresses or about a particular personal experience. This material must now be arranged in a way that creates an interesting script and an engaging final production. ‘Direct address’ – where the actor speaks ‘out’ to the audience – is one option and another possibility is the creation of dialogue between actors from what was originally a monologue. A scripting example is provided from the author’s play, Gateway to Heaven, showing an excerpt from a narrator’s interview and then how it was reworked into a scene involving several characters.
