Graduation Year

2026

Graduation Month

May

Document Type

Thesis

Faculty Mentor Department

Theatre & Dance

Faculty Mentor

Mark Plonsky

Keywords

Fear, Verbatim Theatre, Interactive Theatre, Interviews, Community

Subject Categories

Critical and Cultural Studies | International and Intercultural Communication | Performance Studies | Physiology | Playwriting

Abstract

“K(no)w Fear” is an award winning piece of verbatim theater based on word-for-word interviews and collected research that's goal was to cultivate a connective and thoughtful community open to exploring what shapes us all: fear. Our GLI Capstone team gathered the resources for this theater piece by conducting interviews with a mixed demographic of people we know as well as strangers on the street, asking questions like: “How do you feel about death?” and “If fear were a place for you, where would it be?” With consent, their answers were used to build an immersive, verbatim theatre piece where actors and audiences collaborated on building a greater communal understanding of fear as a concept and a life-long partner by reading the interviewees’ responses aloud. This project revealed how fear shapes us both individually and collectively, and how hearing and processing each other’s fears and vulnerabilities can build empathy for those different from us and strengthen more supportive and understanding communities. Storytelling in the face of fear is not a new human tool, but an ancient practice across cultures, used for centuries as a means of healing and meaning-making during times of hardship. Our findings suggested that this process of sharing stories is central to how people connect, cope, and make sense of fear together.

Honors College Research Project

1

GLI Capstone Project

yes

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© Copyright 2026 Penelope Meredyk, Lotus Porte-Moyel, Fiona Carson, Cosley Bruno, Barrett Clement, Sophia Sproull, and Morgan Davis