Joe Salvatore Publishes How-To Book on Ethnodrama

Joe Salvatore, clinical professor of educational theatre at NYU Steinhardt and vice chair for academic affairs, published a new book titled Creating Ethnodrama: A Theatrical Approach to Research.

Salvatore is the founder and director of Steinhardt's Verbatim Performance Lab (VPL), which specializes in creating and performing ethnodrama and verbatim documentary theatre, then investigating the results with actors and audiences. VPL uses a specific approach to ethnodrama that involves actors portraying as precisely as possible the exact words and gestures of people from interviews about a particular topic and media artifacts, such as video and audio recordings or court reports. Following each VPL performance, audiences then engage in discussions about their experiences with the material. 

Part of a series called Qualitative Methods “How-To” Guides, Salvatore's new book is intended to be an instructional text for practitioners looking to leverage this art form.

“Since 2012, I have been teaching a course at NYU Steinhardt called Creating  Ethnodrama and Documentary Theatre, and this book is essentially a version of what I teach,” says Salvatore. “In the beginning, I lay out that this is one way of doing this work, not the only way. My methodology has benefited from years of teaching other people how to do this, and I have seen many students go on to do their own projects with their own variations.”