“We don’t know war in the same way today as people did then.” 
“I wonder if they knew what they wanted or were in for, really.
I wonder if they missed the war when they returned.”
“So interesting, the emphasis on good appearance.”
“What are the rules of this world?”
• Lewis & Clark State College, 2011
• University of Utah 2015, 2017
• Bootleg Theater, 2017
T
ext-Based Devised Theatre: An Inquiry Process
• Research (gather, collect, find, identify, source, discover, reveal)
• Select (choose, pick, decide, single out, cull, prefer, distinguish, judge)
• Organize (categorize, classify, thematize, arrange, manage)
• Associate (put together, rearrange, relate, set next to each other, juxtapose, join, mingle)
• Combine (merge, absorb, collage, decollage, blend, integrate, mix)
• Transform (change, remodel, reconstruct, translate, metamorphose)
The Data Corpus (preliminary model)
• Snippets – A sentence, words, a list, a phrase, a name, a salutation, a headline, a date, a single image or recorded sound or text. An anecdote, a joke, a cartoon.
• Fragments – A handful of sentences, a letter, a paragraph, an article from a newspaper, a group of images or video assemblage.
• Passages – A gathering of fragments (text, film, images, artifacts) that can be worked – associated – into a vignette or scene.
• Threads – Two or more passages that tell one person’s whole story, or relate a significant period, turning point, or theme.
• Themes – Unifying ideas, structures, motifs, etc. that recur throughout; arcs of the project.
Themes/Essential Structures
• What is the role of women in American society?
• What does it mean to be a citizen?
• How to live free as a woman in a world that doesn’t want you to?
We must in short, consider women’s private experiences
in the context of public demands and public opportunities.
(Campbell, 1984, p. 9)
Scaffold & Framing Questions
• How did women get into the military, how was that milestone achieved? (gender bias, racism, norms and expectations, feminism)
• Who were they? (personal traits, hometowns, demographics, personalities)
• What happened to them, what did they do? (service, war, destruction, loyalty, bravery, friendship, love, sex, and romance)
• What was it like? How did they feel about it? (self-discovery, homophobia, coming of age, self-confidence, relevancy)
• What happened when the war was over? How were they changed? (crisis, home and homecoming, families, disillusionment, loss, transition, fulfillment; women’s rights, civil rights, revolution)
