Johnny Saldaña (ed.) - Ethnodrama: An Anthology of Reality Theatre

P laywriting instructors also assign play reading to study exemplars of the art and craft. Aside from ethnodramas, literary and commercial play scripts serve as models and stimuli for developing original performance ethnography. I recommend the following titles from dramatic literature but advise that you stay away from their film adaptations. The playwrights original conception and structure of the script may have been altered for the media.

For autoethnography models, read:

• Jo Bonney, ed., Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2000)
• Carolyn Gage, The Last Reading of Charlotte Cushman , in Lynn C. Miller, Jacqueline Taylor, and M. Heather Carver, eds., Voices Made Flesh: Performing Womens Autobiography (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003)
• Holly Hughes and David Roman, eds., O Solo Homo: The New Queer Performance (New York: Grove Press, 1998)
• John Leguizamo with David Bar Katz, Freak: A Semi-Demi-Quasi-Pseudo Autobiography (New York: Riverhead Books, 1997)
• Jane Martin, Talking With ... (New York: Samuel French, 1983)
• Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (New York: Harper & Row, 1986)

For models that examine a principal investigators relationship with participants, read:

• Mark Medoff, Children of a Lesser God (Clifton, NJ: James T. White & Co., 1980)
• John Pielmeier, Agnes of God (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982)
• Peter Shaffer, Equus (New York: Avon Books, 1974)

For models that incorporate participant interviews into monologue and dialogue, read:

• Michael Bennett, et al., A Chorus Line: The Book of the Musical (New York: Applause Books, 1995)
• Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, The Exonerated (New York: Faber and Faber, 2004)
• Eve Ensler, The Vagina Monologues (New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2000)
• William H. Hoffman, As Is (New York: Vintage Books, 1985)
• Moiss Kaufman and Members of the Tectonic Theater Project, The Laramie Project (New York: Vintage Books, 2001)
• Anne Nelson, The Guys (New York: Random House, 2002)
• Anna Deavere Smith, Fires in the Mirror (New York: Doubleday, 1993) and Twilight: Los Angeles , 1992 (New York: Doubleday, 1994)
• Studs Terkels Working , adapted by Stephen Schwartz and Nina Faso (New York: Music Theatre International, 1978)
• Doug Wright, I Am My Own Wife (New York: Faber and Faber, 2004)

For a model that displays ways of presenting correspondence data, read

• A. R. Gurney, Love Letters (New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1989)

For models that include a narrator as a key figure, read:

• Thornton Wilder, Our Town (New York: Harper, 1960)
• Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie (New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1976)

Playwriting texts recommended by colleagues who practice and teach the art form include:

• Lajos Egri, The Art of Dramatic Writing (New York: Touchstone Books, 1972)
• Michael Wright, Playwriting in Process: Thinking and Working Theatrically (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1997)

Ajwang, R. O., and L. Edmondson. (2003). Love in the time of dissertations: An ethnographic tale. Qualitative Inquiry 9(3), 46680.

Alexander, B. K. (2000). Skin flint (or, the garbage mans kid): A generative autobiographical performance based on Tami Sprys Tattoo Stories. Text and Performance Quarterly 20(1), 97114.

Armijo, L. M., and K. Lindemann. (2002). People of the shadows: An ethnographic performance exploring boundary management among the homeless. Unpublished manuscript.

Bagley, C., and M. B. Cancienne, eds. (2002). Dancing the data. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.