2019 NYU Constitution Day: The Kavanaugh Files
September 19, 2019
The NYU Brademas Center and NYU Government Affairs celebrated the signing of the U.S. Constitution with a special performance of The Kavanaugh Files created by NYU Steinhardt's Verbatim Performance Lab.
Constitution Day, also known as Citizenship Day, is an American federal observance that recognizes the adoption of the United States Constitution (September 17, 1787) and those who have become U.S. citizens.
NYU Students, faculty/staff as well as local community members were invited to this free performance and discussion with NYU Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law & Co-Director of Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Network Melissa Murray and Clinical Associate Professor of Educational Theatre Joe Salvatore.
The Kavanaugh Files was a verbatim performance of key moments from the hearings. Performers presented the original words, gestures, and disfluencies of the real-life people, and in most cases, the genders have been inverted--women performed the roles that men had in the real hearings, and men performed the women. How is our perception of a person’s behavior influenced by their gender, and how does that impact the ways in which we respond to national events?
Company Bios
Stephanie Anderson
Suzy Jane Hunt
Daryl Embry
Scott Michael Morales
Analisa Gutierrez
Robert M. Thaxton-Stevenson
Creative Team Bios
Melissa Murray, Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law & Co-Director, Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Network
Melissa Murray is a leading expert in family law, constitutional law, and reproductive rights and justice. Murray’s award-winning research focuses on the legal regulation of intimate life and encompasses such topics as the regulation of sex and sexuality, marriage and its alternatives, the marriage equality debate, the legal recognition of caregiving, and reproductive rights and justice. Her publications have appeared in the California Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Harvard Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Pennsylvania Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Yale Law Journal, among others. She is an author of Cases on Reproductive Rights and Justice, the first casebook to cover the field of reproductive rights and justice, and a co-editor of Reproductive Rights and Justice Stories.
In September 2018, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford came forward with allegations that she had been sexually assaulted by then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when they were both teenagers in the 1980s. The allegations prompted a second set of hearings conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018. Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh both offered sworn testimony and faced questioning by members of the committee and a designated proxy, Rachel Mitchell. Following these hearings, the committee voted 11-10 to send the nomination to the Senate floor. On October 6, 2018, the Senate voted 50-48 to confirm Kavanaugh to become an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
The Verbatim Performance Lab (VPL) investigates and performs words and gestures collected from found media artifacts and interview-based data. Through these investigations, VPL disrupts assumptions, biases, and intolerances across a spectrum of political, cultural, and social narratives.
The Kavanaugh Files was originally created as a video project with funding support from a Faculty Challenge Grant awarded by NYU Steinhardt and with additional in-kind support from NYU-TV. Videos include original performances by Heleya de Barros and Rachel Tuggle Whorton.
Created by Joe Salvatore and Keith R. Huff
In collaboration with Stephanie Anderson, Daryl Embry, Analisa Gutierrez, Suzy Jane Hunt, Scott Michael Morales, and Robert Thaxton-Stevenson
Costumes by Márion Talán
Stage Manager: Cassie Holzum
VPL is a project of NYU Steinhardt’s Program in Educational Theatre.