Playback Theater, developed by Jonathan Fox and Jo Salas, is an internationally recognized form of improvisational theater. During a Playback performance, audience members are invited to share significant personal stories from their lives. Each story is then spontaneously “played back” by a team of actors and musicians, allowing for the individual and collective witnessing of each teller’s experience.
This class offers a supportive and fun introduction to Playback Theater’s profound process of listening, sharing, and performing each other’s stories. Sessions begin with guided warm-ups, such as movement, sound, theater games, and guided group interactions. We then focus on specific Playback Theater skills and techniques, including fluid sculptures, pairs, flairs, chorus, three-person story, and full-length story enactment.
Students will be supported to experiment with and practice the full range of Playback Theater roles: actor, musician, conductor, teller, and witness.
All will have the opportunity to share their own stories and to take part in playing back the stories of other participants. No performance experience is necessary.