Verbatim theater: A transformative approach for bringing research to life

Traditional methods of research translation within the scientific and health professions community are typically quite narrow, often focusing on written textual outputs and conference presentations. Considering translation approaches for our research findings and ‘who’ and ‘what’ we are trying to influence is worthy of alternative approaches perhaps. We share an example of bringing research findings to life via a verbatim theater. Verbatim theater uses the exact words provided in interviews and is directly informed and constructed from people's lived experience and narratives. This article draws from the first author's doctoral study exploring professionalism and sociocultural factors in dietetic education. This included a large qualitative data set following interviews with n = 100 participants. We have shared our reflexivity in decision making around approaching translating research in this creative and more embodied way, highlighting key strengths, experiences and limitations of developing a verbatim theater and included an excerpt of the theater and the script. We have provided practical recommendations for qualitative researchers who are interested in considering more innovative arts-based approaches to research translation. We encourage researchers to be more creative in considering more embodied ways of research translation.