Documentary Theatre Production
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — The Theatre of Reality WittSems (short for Wittenberg Seminars) class will present an original documentary theatre production based on the 2004 presidential election at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 9, in Chakeres Memorial Theatre, 905 Woodlawn Ave. The performance is free and open to the public.
Taught by Steve Reynolds, professor of theatre and dance, the class interviewed Wittenberg students, faculty and staff and area residents, before creating a show from the actual words recorded in those interviews. The production is divided into three sections — one composed of interviews conducted before election day, one on election day and one after the election.
To prepare for the show, the students studied the theory and history of documentary theatre, including a number of plays such as Execution of Justice by Emily Mann, The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theatre Project. To assist with the interviewing process, the students also studied oral history interview techniques.
The performance will be a script-in-hand staged reading with visual support from slides and a power point presentation. In addition to creating the script, class members are responsible for the acting and all other technical aspects of the show.
Required of all first-year students, the WittSems are small, topical courses designed by individual instructors or teams of instructors that share common goals: to help students become intellectually and personally engaged in academic inquiry and to understand the relation between the world of learning and their own lives.
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