Performing The Self

I’ve been working on a long term research project about authenticity in performance and I’ve just completed a co-authored paper about a study we recently completed using auto-verbatim techniques. Here is an excerpt:

Conducted by practitioners with extensive experience across theatrical and performance disciplines, this study is part of a broader three-year project exploring how audiences perceive authenticity in verbatim performance. The iteration discussed here focuses on three actors—Sylvia, David, and James—each performing a verbatim recreation of their own interview. Through this approach, we use self-performance as a lens for interrogating authenticity in acting.

The paper begins by defining auto-verbatim performance and situating our study within a broader discourse on essentialism in casting and authenticity. We then outline our methods and filming protocols, examine the internal dynamics of self-performance through actor reflections, and conclude with an analysis of audience survey data from fifty randomly selected viewers.