How can theater be used to share the words and stories of real people?

Compared to most of the work I have done this project has been focused on the creative process–which I feel a lot less comfortable with than either research or analysis. This has meant that I’ve learned a ton about how I work. I spent the overwhelming majority of the project pondering. I talked a lot with Joan and Nellie, met with Allison and Chris multiple times and would talk with friends. I had to mull over ideas for extended amounts of time before they felt right to me. However I also learned that sometimes I just need to write. No creative piece is ever going to feel totally settled and while I consciously knew this was an essential element to the work I was doing, I subconsciously wanted to make everything fit perfectly together. 

While I learned a lot about my creative process there is still a lot I don’t know. I still don’t know how to take ownership of my own piece while not feeling like I had co-opted someone else’s story. They play I am working on is mine but the content of my work is someone else’s real story. This conflict is at the core of my question. How do theater makers share other people’s real stories? What I have learned is that theater makes this both easier and harder all in one. There is so much space for a play to challenge and question itself. Many of the shows I read constantly remind the audience that they are watching a show and challenge them to think about what that means for the story they are hearing. However theater is harder because it is so embodied. While there is infinite space to acknowledge that you are telling a story, actually speaking as someone else requires even more ownership than just writing about them.  For my work this has meant that I need to think about how to center the story on me and my experiences in Harlan–something I do feel ownership of. However, I also have to continue to work through the challenges of telling someone else’s story and my fear of messing it up because regardless, that will be an essential part of not just theater but all forms to storytelling.