Isolation / Connection

An interview-based, documentary theatre play created by the students in EGL 284: Public Humanities.

Instructor: Ken Weitzman

Isolation Connection Script

In Fall 2021, the students in EGL 284: Public Humanities created an interview-based documentary theatre play. Under the direction of Professor Ken Weitzman, students conducted interviews on the paired theme of “Isolation / Connection.” The theme allowed Covid-19 to be a major concern of conversations, but also opened space to wander, bringing long-standing and disparate notions of what it means to be alone or tied to the world into focus. In the interests of privacy and intimacy, the interviews were not recorded. Students instead had to remember their conversations, conveying them later to their peers and using them as starting points for a script that channelled individual voices into a collective experience. The polyphone performance had each voice speak independently but, anonymous and fragmented, they came together to create a constantly shifting chorus of reflections on experiences that are at once distinctly personal and deeply shared.

Click here to listen to a podcast episode on the project

In this recorded conversation, Professor Ken Weitzman and students Syerra Bush, Kevin Chacon, and Margaret Zanone along with Teaching Assistant Mimi Zahed discuss documentary theatre and their experience in creating “Isolation / Connection” in fall 2021.