Performing the castaway

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis work begins to explore a new story and encounter, and also examines the practice of scriptwriting as a creative practice, as creative writing and research. In particular this work investigates the interactive process of creating, representing multiple voices from historical texts, archival research, the researcher, the writer, the characters and the performers. It aims to contribute to the growing body of work within the academy that explores the nexus between scriptwriting as creative writing and research. While the historical researcher might be more concerned with wanting to accurately analyse and communicate information, the dramatic scriptwriter has to give consideration to aesthetic elements, as well as the multiple contributions of performances and audiences. A creative research process, about nineteenth-century shipwreck survivor Barbara Crawford's story, has therefore begun with a focus on the imagining and writing as research, not considered separately but interrogated as part of the creative process and new work.