Playback Theater
A group of people in a room, a hall, a theatre. They face a row of actors sitting on boxes. On one side sits a musician with an array of instruments. On the other, an emcee, who waits next to an empty chair. This is for the "teller," who will come from the audience to tell a personal story. Then, in a ritualized process, using mime, music and spoken scenes, the players will act out the story. After one teller, another will come. In this way, the individuals in the audience will witness a theatre of their own stories.
Playback Theatre is used in educational, therapeutic, social change, and arts settings, either as performance, with a company of trained actors and a defined audience; or as a group event led by an individual, in which participants become actors as well as tellers for each other. Playback Theatre companies now exist in many localities, usually calling themselves after their town, such as Melbourne Playback Theatre, or Köln Playback Theatre.
Founded in 1975 by Jonathan Fox, a student of improvisation who had studied oral traditional tale-telling and psychodrama, the original Playback Theatre Company made its home in Dutchess and Ulster Counties of New York State, just north of New York City. This group, while developing the basis of the Playback form, took it to schools, prisons, centers for the elderly, conferences, and festivals in an effort to encourage individuals from all walks of society to let their story be heard. They also performed monthly for the public-at-large.
The playback theatre idea has inspired many people. Playback companies now exist on five continents. The International Playback Theatre Network was founded in 1990 to support Playback activity throughout the world. As of 1999, the IPTN has 70 company and 200 individual members from 26 countries. For links to many PT companies and other information about Playback, see the home page of the International Playback Theatre Network.
International Playback conferences have taken place in Sydney, Australia (1992), in a village north of Helsinki, Finland (1993), in Olympia, Washington (1995), in Perth, Australia, (1997), and in York, England (1999).
To meet the demand for training which this level of growth has created, Jonathan Fox, Jo Salas and guest faculty run the School of Playback Theatre, providing beginning, intermediate and advanced levels of training in Playback Theatre since 1993.
Books about Playback Theatre can be obtained through Tusitala Publishers. Articles written as Leadership projects for the School, lectures from the 1997 Playback Theatre Symposium in Germany, and others can be referenced via the IPTN home page.
back to Schedule
A group of people in a room, a hall, a theatre. They face a row of actors sitting on boxes. On one side sits a musician with an array of instruments. On the other, an emcee, who waits next to an empty chair. This is for the "teller," who will come from the audience to tell a personal story. Then, in a ritualized process, using mime, music and spoken scenes, the players will act out the story. After one teller, another will come. In this way, the individuals in the audience will witness a theatre of their own stories.