The Document as Music, Exploring the Musicality of Verbatim Material in Performance

Abstract During a four-week fellowship at the LMU Munich in 2016, Bella Merlin (UC Riverside, USA) and David Roesner (Theatre Studies, LMU Munich) investigated the relationship between original interview material and its (musical) staging. In particular, they explored the ethics and aesthetics that musicalisation might present in relation to the speech patterns, vocal inflections and rhythms of their interview partners from across three generations in three different countries. In this article they will draw conclusions from their working process, which address questions about verbatim theatre and musicality beyond their particular study.