The Reader's Theatre Script for “Lifelong Impact: Adult Perceptions of Their High School Speech and/or Theatre Participation”

Abstract

This article includes a reader's theatre script adapted from a full-length qualitative study, “Lifelong Impact: Adult Perceptions of Their High School Speech and/or Theatre Participation.” The report first reviews reader's theatre as an arts-based form of research representation and presentation, then surveys key figures from qualitative inquiry and theatre education involved with interdisciplinary collaborations. The coauthors then discuss one of their key learnings from their experiences with performing the research, labeled “reinteracting the data”—a triple compound word of acting, reacting, and interacting with the dramatized text and our audiences.

Acknowledgments

The coresearchers thank the 2011 American Alliance for Theatre & Education Research Awards Committee and jurors for their support of this work. We also extend our thanks to the 234 “Lifelong Impact” survey respondents who shared their personal testimonies with us. This article includes the scripted adaptation of the full-length “Lifelong Impact” study; the summary report precedes this piece. It is included in Youth Theatre Journal as an example of arts-based educational research representation and presentation through the genre of reader's theatre. The script was performed by the four coauthors at the August 2011 AATE Research Awards session in Chicago.

Notes

¹Portions of this script will appear in a forthcoming chapter for Performing Scholartistry, a volume of the Arts-Informed Inquiry Series published by Backalong Books (www.backalongbooks.com). Earlier versions of this script were developed for and performed at the NAPAR and AERA conferences. Saldaña and McCammon's university institutional review boards approved the “Lifelong Impact” study in the fall of 2009.