collaboration began.
Verbatim theatre is a form of documentary drama in which the entirety of the dialogue is drawn word-for-word from the voices of real people, in this case from excerpts drawn from the interviews that Sue conducted with the ten women whose stories we hear in No White Picket Fence. Unlike traditional realism, the form allowed Robin and Sue to keep alive multiple journeys without reducing them to one story, one heroine, or one impression. No two “foster kids” – no two “youth in care” – are the same. Ever.
Sue and Robin agreed that TST was ideal for this sort of project. Students at St. Thomas are socially conscious to a fault, with an unflinching rehearsal ethic. And like Solo Chicken Productions / TST’s community-engaged play Rabbit-Town (2014), No White Picket Fence educates. It also seeks to advocate.
Before any steps could be taken to advance what Robin and Sue had envisioned, an amendment to the research project required approval by the university’s Research Ethics Board. Research participants were then contacted to explain the addition to the project and invited to participate in this component by allowing the use of their interviews for the creation of the script. All ten participants gave their consent.
CREATING AND DIRECTING THE VERBATIM SCRIPT
Over four weeks during the summer of 2016, Robin listened to dozens of interview hours, read a thousand transcript pages, and whittled down these heartbreaking and inspiring stories to a 196-page script (or a ten-and-a-half-hour play). After adding some moments and subtracting many others, he and Sue eventually arrived at a forty-page script (or a ninety-six-minute production) that they believed honoured individual journeys while also generating, at selected moments, community among the women. Research participants were each invited to review and give input to the draft script, and through the early autumn eight of the women chose to review and share their reflections. The participants approved the script and, for this, Robin and Sue were humbled.
Scheduled as the winter production in TST’s 2016–2017 Season, No White Picket Fence had its auditions in September alongside TST’s fall show. By mid-October, with the script finalized and the creative team chosen, Robin, Sue, and TST’s technical director and resident designer, Chris Saad, prepared for rehearsals, which began in November. The actors who played the ten women in the play’s world premiere were university students or recent graduates in their twenties. They did not receive the script beforehand, and all members of the creative team were required to attend the first read-through. Importantly, the initial rehearsal centred on establishing a highly respectful tone. Discussion of the purpose of the research project and the play, and signing confidentiality agreements, were crucial before undertaking the first read-through.
Participants’ accounts reflect times of chaos and deep suffering, and they also highlight persistent efforts to resist and move toward living well. The script focuses attention on the urgent need for substantive changes to a care system that often struggles to meet its central mandate to protect and nurture our youth. Given the play’s focus, having the opportunity to debrief experiences and issues explored in the script was important, both for building support among team members and for framing the theatre project as a form of social justice work.
Research participants were invited to attend the second read-through in November, knowing that they would have the opportunity to share their insights about the care system and their perspectives on this project. Two participants, as well as the staff coordinator for the New Brunswick Youth in Care Network, chose to attend the rehearsal. Actors had the privilege of reading the play in their presence, and learned why the project was so important to them. The cast and crew expressed significant gratitude for this time of sharing and learning. The experience of this foundational rehearsal was deeply felt by the creative team and set a highly respectful tone and cohesive spirit for the remainder of the production experience.
In December, Robin and Chris co-designed the set for the production, and St. Thomas graduate Zachary Greer began designing a soundscape. When rehearsals were renewed in January, a supportive and disciplined environment was quickly established, nurtured significantly by Robin as the play’s director, as well as by student stage manager Amy Baldwin. Robin and Sue worked closely during rehearsals, and the creative team welcomed and accepted Sue as researcher/co-creator in their midst (a role that most team members were not accustomed to during a production).
The actors’ preparation for No White Picket Fence involved concerted efforts to maintain the essence and spirit of the women’s voices. Each actor listened to excerpts from participants’ audiotaped interviews and learned about the foster care system. Far from imitating the women, however, Robin asked each actor to create a third entity, a character fully inspired by the text and by the pseudonym each participant had chosen for her interview. This approach was meant to keep the performers psychologically safe. Actors did not feel like they were being asked to “imitate” the women, nor did they feel as though ownership of their respective characters lay anywhere but with them.
Robin incorporated other Brechtian “distancing” effects, too: actors shed their characters to support other stories by becoming the “Interviewer” or by manipulating toys and other props during another actor’s monologue; live video filmed by an actor literally provided an alternative perspective on a scene; scene titles projected on a bedsheet hung from a laundry line refocused the audience’s gaze; and our Black Box Theatre’s thrust configuration allowed audience members some choice as to where they would view the show, and ensured that everyone in the room could be seen by the rest of the audience, visibly implicating them in the action. By employing these distancing strategies, the creative team afforded the audience multiple options for engaging with the performance, while reminding everyone that there are multiple means to understand the youth in care system.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
As Theatre St. Thomas sent out the usual press releases and social-media blitzes, and Robin conducted media interviews, Sue’s promotional focus was on outreach to stakeholders who are in positions to support much-needed change in the systems impacting many youth. These efforts resulted in audiences significantly made up of social workers, educators, activists, politicians, and staff of non-profit organizations and government ministries whose mandate includes the support of youth. Along with other audience members, they engaged in robust discussions during the twenty-minute talkback sessions that followed each performance.
At several points in the play, experiences of violence and abuse are described (although we do not linger in these accounts, and none are physically acted out). Accordingly, a comfortable quiet space was prepared for the use of audience members during or after the show; the audience was made aware at the show’s outset that if they wished to have a break during the play (or a quiet space after its conclusion), the space was available to them. Trained volunteers from the Fredericton Sexual Assault Centre were present throughout and following each production to offer support if requested.
Of note, eight of the ten interviewed participants (accompanied by loved ones) chose to see the show; some travelled significant distances to do so. Two also chose to speak during the talkback sessions. Most often, the participants lingered after the show in order to meet the actor whose character represented their experiences. The actors described these meetings, and the participants’ feedback and words of thanks, as powerful and affirming for them.
Since the run of No White Picket Fence in February 2017, the team has continued to receive strong responses from audiences. Sue and Robin have been particularly moved by enthusiastic and affirming messages from individuals who have themselves experienced the troubled care system in their youth, as well as from those who are actively working to improve it.
For the creative team, the ten research participants are the true heroes of this story. Their accounts are raw, characterized by times of turmoil and suffering in their original family
