UNCW Performance Studies: Black Box Experimental Performance
Black Box Experimental Performance takes research data or literature not created for the stage and creates a black box performance that is open to the public via live theatre or film screenings. Performances include adapting data from Dr. Scott-Pollock’s narrative interviews into performances to make themes and findings accessible to general audiences and performances adapted from cultural literature into live performance scripts. Students featured in the performance, promoters, and producers of the shows are enrolled in COM 415: Applied Cultural Performance
La Befana: The Italian Christmas Witch
Driven by curiosity and built on purpose, this is where bold thinking meets thoughtful execution. Let’s create something meaningful together.
La Befana: The Italian Christmas Witch was the final culmination of Fall 2025 COM 495: Applied Cultural Performance. The script is an adaptation of several retellings of the Italian legend interwoven with letters from St. Augustine about the conversion of the Sabine people. The script won the Marion Kleinau National Scripting Award for 2026.
Winner of the Marion Kleinau National Scripting Literary Award
2026
MASCULINITIES CAUGHT IN CULTURAL TIDES:
An adaptation of Stories of Raising Boys
Masculinities Caught in Cultural Tides is the culminating project of COM 495: Applied Cultural Performance in partnership with the UNCW Quality Enhancement Project on Interdisciplinary Learning in upper-level undergraduate courses. The students learned the research method of Performance Ethnography, which is drawn from Communication Studies, Performance Studies, Anthropology, and Theatre. The students learned the design and ethics of the method while staging performance ethnographic data collected from 2018-2024 with individuals who live with seizure disorders, identify as gender expansive, and/or live with anxiety. The script is created through autoethnographic reflections from the director/professor of raising five children in contemporary culture and verbatim interview data that reiterates and deviates from her lived experiences. Thick descriptions from fieldwork settings and reflective analysis are staged through multiple narrators. This is an early-stage adaptation of a book project with Temple University Press with Dr. Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock (professor/director) of the production.
MEMORIES THAT MATTER:
ELDERS’ NARRATIVES OF LOVE AND LOSS
Memories that Matter: Elders' Narratives of Love and Loss was screened as an official competitive selection for the 2015 National Communication Association Film Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. The process of creating the film with students enrolled in a 400-level Communication Studies class is the focus of the 2018 Research monograph: Embodied Performance as Applied Research Art and Pedagogy.
CRIPPING:
A PERFORMANCE ETHNOGRAPHY OF DISABILITY AND IDENTITY
Cripping: A Performance Ethnography of Disability and Identity is published in the peer-reviewed international journal Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies. The video can be viewed here, while the accompanying pedagogical essay can be viewed here.
The script for Cripping: A Performance Ethnography of Disability and Identity is based upon narrative research conducted by the director and researcher, Dr. Julie-Ann Scott-Pollock. The script was created verbatim from interview transcripts. The actors in this film were enrolled in a 400-level undergraduate Communication Studies class entitled Performance Ethnography in Action: A Film Project. Throughout the process, students were required to learn about performance ethnography as an artistic research method in pursuit of cultural connection and social justice. Preparing for filming required students to articulate the ethical considerations surrounding embodying another and performing difference. As both professor and director, Dr. Scott entered into the process with them, also portraying participants from her research project. The film is co-directed by William Bolduc and Frank Trimble and is a production of the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Copyright 2015.
Video:
Scott, J.A., Bolduc, W. & Trimble F. (2015). Cripping: A Performance Ethnography of Disability and Identity. Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 11(4), online.
Essay:
Scott, J.A., Bolduc, W. & Trimble F. (2015). Co-creating Cripping: A performance ethnographic research project as undergraduate pedagogy. Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 11(4), 1-23, online.
SEIZING:
PERSONAL STORIES OF LIVING WITH SEIZURES
Seizing is a performance of collected stories of individuals whom Dr. Scott-Pollock interviewed about living with seizure disorders after her son, Tony who lives with seizures asked her if her next study could focus on what it is like to have uncontrolled seizures so other people could understand and be more at ease when someone has a seizure in their presence.
The interview excerpts performed by the student cast are verbatim from the audio recordings and are delivered with attention to the interviewee's original speech patterns. Throughout the course, students learned how to embody ethnographic interviews on the stage with empathy, authenticity, and ethical care.
Between monologues, the inspiration for the project, and lines taken from the interviews that explains what it is like to live with seizures provide a chorus of perspectives and experiences of what it means to live with seizures.
