Transcript to Script: Turning oral history into plays for stage and radio (Online)
This course presents a brief history of oral history theatre and an overview of the various forms it can take, including strict documentary theatre using named individuals, verbatim theatre, the creation of a set of fictional characters using ‘actuality’ dialogue, the use of oral history as research material for scripting, and improvisation around memory without a transcript.
Using illustrations from various productions, there will be an examination of the ground rules for turning transcript material into dialogue, of the use of music, song and non-verbal storytelling, of the incorporation of documentary history (as opposed to oral history) elements into the script, of the overall shaping of the work and of the contract with the audience.
The course will involve practical activity, actually turning transcripts into dialogue and action.
By the end of the course, participants should have a clear idea of the options open to them for creating theatre from oral history and have acquired some of the basic skills for putting together such a script. In addition participants will have learned about the major artistic, ethical and legal issues involved.
Participants do not need to have experience as a playwright, although it would be useful to have read some theatre scripts, if only to have some idea of presentation on the page. Previous attendance on the Introduction to Oral History training course, while desirable, is not required.
Please note:
- There will be no refunds for cancelled places.
- Due to high demand and in order to ensure that each course has attendees with a variety of interests and backgrounds, a maximum of two people from any one institution may book to attend each course.
- There are two methods of payment. You can pay online via PayPal, debit or credit card or you can make an offline payment where an invoice will be sent to your organisation. Please select the appropriate option in the booking form.
- If you choose to pay by invoice please note that payments for training courses will be made to National Life Stories (NLS), and the invoice will be sent by email from NLS within a week of your booking. Contact the Training Coordinator if you require further details for your purchase order number.
- In booking this training course you agree to follow the OHS Code of Conduct.
Please contact the Training Coordinator if you would like to be notified of future dates.
Course tutor
The tutor, Rib Davis, is an OHS/NLS-BL accredited trainer and over the past thirty years has been interviewer/writer/director for many oral history-based plays and radio drama productions. This course is organised jointly by National Life Stories at the British Library and the Oral History Society.
Pre-course reading
As part of the training, course participants will read and analyse extracts from a published script. For courses led by Rib Davis in 2026 the script will be ‘Grenfell: in the words of survivors’, by Gillina Slovo (Nick Hern Books). Participants are invited to read the script in advance of the course.
Course schedule
This online training course is delivered over Zoom video call. Each course is run over two morning sessions, 9.30am – 1.15pm (Timezone: London, UK). In between the two sessions participants complete a practical script-writing exercise.
Day 1: Monday 12 October 2026
Day 2: Thursday 15 October 2026
The programme for the course is as follows (please note this is a sample structure and may differ on the day).
Hourly Schedule
Day 1
- 09:30 - 09:45
- Welcome and Introductions
- 09:45 - 10:45
- Introduction to oral history-based theatre:
- Brief history of genre in UK including the Radio Ballads, Victoria Theatre in Stoke, The Living Archive, Age Exchange, the National Theatre and BBC productions. - Oral history as research material only. - Fictional characters but words from the tape. - Non-fictional characters: strict and loose forms of documentary/ ‘verbatim’ theatre. - Improvising around memory without transcript
- 10:45 - 11:00
- Break
- 11:00 - 11:15
- Introduction to oral history-based theatre (continued)
- 11:15 - 12:15
- Telling the story
- Planning the interviews and other research for the project. - Deciding upon what the story actually is. - Shaping the script. - Ground rules for creation of documentary dialogue. - Use of direct and indirect speech. - Use of music, song and non-verbal story-telling. - Incorporation of non-oral documentary material. - The contract with the audience. - Combining sources: oral history and documents. - Writing for radio, writing for stage
- 12:15 - 12:30
- Break
- 12:30 - 12:45
- Telling the story (continued)
- 12:45 - 13:15
- Creating the script
- An example of oral history as central research for drama. - An example of documentary theatre. - Introducing material to be turned into scenes.
- Between days 1 and 2 participants write documentary scenes using transcript extracts provided, and then send them to the course administrator.
Day 2
- 09:30 - 10:00
- Legal and ethical issues, and archiving the script
- Summarising, transcription, copyright, archiving
- 10:00 - 10:45
- Reading and comparing scripts prepared by the group
- 10:45 - 11:00
- Break
- 11:00 - 12:00
- Reading and comparing scripts prepared by the group (continued)
- 12:00 - 12:15
- Some examples of verbatim theatre
- 12:15 - 12:30
- Break
- 12:30 - 13:00
- Some examples of verbatim theatre (continued)
- 13:00 - 13:15
- Review of the day and Q&A
- 12 - 15 Oct 2026
- 9:30 am - 1:15 pm
- Zoom call Time zone: London, United Kingdom GB
Category
Organizer
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Camille Johnston
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Email
[email protected] Oral History Training Administrator
Speaker
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Rib DavisBL/OHS Trainer; Chair of the OHS Environment and Climate Change SIGI have worked for many years as an accredited trainer in oral history both in the UK and abroad (most recently with a NGO in Beirut). I also run oral history projects and act as an oral history consultant in a wide variety of settings, from galleries and museums to schools, youth groups and heritage, arts and community organisations. My involvement in the field began in the mid ‘70s in Milton Keynes, alongside Roger Kitchen and Roy Nevitt at The Living Archive. That eventually led to my researching, writing and mostly directing 15 large-scale oral history-based community plays, focusing on, for example, steel workers, miners, railway workers or communities that have virtually disappeared (such as the West End of Derby).
2018-’19 I was the National Life Stories Goodison Fellow, writing Miriam, a stage play dealing with attitudes towards presentation of the Holocaust, taking as its starting point the Holocaust testimonies held at the British Library. I have also worked extensively as a playwright/ scriptwriter for non-oral history-based theatre, radio and television, and have written 2 books on scriptwriting. I am at present Chair of the OHS Environment and Climate Change Special Interest Group.
