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Playback Theatre is an original form of improvisational theatre in which audience or group members tell stories from their lives and watch them enacted on the spot.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2023) |
Playback Theatre is an original form of improvisational theatre in which audience or group members tell stories from their lives and watch them enacted on the spot.
The first Playback Theatre company was founded in 1975 [1] by Jonathan Fox and Jo Salas. Fox was a student of improvisational theatre, oral traditional storytelling, Jacob Moreno's psychodrama method and the work of educator Paulo Freire. Salas was a trained musician and activist. Both had served as volunteers in developing countries: Fox as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal, Salas with New Zealand's Volunteer Service Abroad in Malaysia.
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 stories be heard. They also performed monthly for the public-at-large.
The Playback Theatre idea has inspired many people. As an immediate result of a teaching and performing tour by some of the members of the original Playback Theatre Company to Australasia in 1980, companies were founded in Sydney (1980), Melbourne (1981), Perth, and Wellington. All four companies still exist, and are now the oldest extant companies in the world.
Since that time the form has spread throughout North America and Europe, and Playback companies now exist on six continents. The International Playback Theatre Network (IPTN) was founded in 1990 to support Playback activity throughout the world through international conferences and the IPTN Journal (formerly Interplay). As of 2018, the IPTN has 192 group members and 320 practitioner and individual members from 40 countries. [2]
A network was started in 2011 for people interested in Playback Theatre in North America. [3] As of 2022, 55 active companies perform, predominantly in their local communities. Playback North America hosts regular teleconferences, periodic gatherings, leadership coaching, and several publications, including a 300-page training guide on artistic, business, and company development for Playback Theatre (see below).
To meet the demand for training which this level of growth has created, in 1993 Jonathan Fox founded the School of Playback Theatre to provide beginning, intermediate and advanced levels of training in Playback Theatre. [4] The School was renamed the Centre for Playback Theatre in 2006, expanding its focus to worldwide development of Playback Theatre. Graduates of the training program may become accredited trainers of Playback Theatre (APTTs).
Other schools for training exist in Italy, [5] Germany, [6] Japan. [7] and São Paulo, Brazil, [8] [9] Russia, United Kingdom, Israel, Hungary, Hong Kong, Australasia [10] and Sweden. The Playback Centre keeps an online list of affiliated schools [11]
There are regular and semi-regular Playback gatherings and festivals in different parts of the world, including in Finland, the UK, Italy, Germany, Eastern Europe, Israel, Hong Kong, Nepal and India. Playback North America, a network of playback companies in North America, has held several conferences. The International Playback Theatre Network (IPTN) holds a conference every four years in different parts of the world. IPTN conferences have taken place in Sydney, Australia (1992), in a village north of Helsinki, Finland (1993), in Olympia, Washington, USA (1995), Perth, Australia (1997), York, England (1999), Shizuoka, Japan (2003), São Paulo, Brazil (2007), Frankfurt, Germany (2011), Montreal, Canada (2015), and Bangalore, India (2019). [12] The next international conference will take place in South Africa in December, 2023.
The Playback 'form' as developed by Fox and Salas utilizes component theatrical forms or pieces, developed from its sources in improvisational theatre, storytelling, and psychodrama. These components include scenes (also called stories or vignettes) and narrative or non-narrative short forms, including "fluid sculptures", "pairs", and "chorus".
In a Playback event, someone in the audience tells a moment or story from their life, chooses the actors to play the different roles, and then all those present watch the enactment, as the story "comes to life" with artistic shape and nuance. Actors draw on non-naturalistic styles to convey meaning, such as metaphor or song.
Playback performers tend to specialize in one of several roles - conductor, actor, or musician. Some companies also have members who specialize in other roles, such as lighting. For audiences, the active performers can seem preternaturally gifted, as they create their performances without a script or score. Following the practice of the original company, most companies do not consult or "huddle" prior to beginning the story, trusting instead to a shared understanding of the story they have heard and a readiness to respond to each other's cues.
The role of conductor, by contrast, can seem relatively easy, involving as it does conversing with the audience as a group or individually, and generally involving no acting. However, it is recognized within the community of Playback performers as the most difficult role to fill successfully.
Playback Theatre is used in a broad range of settings: theatres and community centres (where performances take place for the general public), in schools, private sector organizations, nonprofit organizations, prisons, hospice centers, day treatment centers, at conferences of all kinds, and colleges and universities.
Playback theatre has also been used in the following fields: transitional justice, human rights, civic dialogue, refugees and immigrants, disaster recovery, climate change, birthdays, weddings, and conferences.
Playback practitioners have used the method in schools on issues such as bullying (students tell stories about their experiences in relation to bullying, watch them played back, and then explore ways to create a respectful and safe school environment). Playback is used both by classroom teachers and by visiting performers/leaders. [13]
Playback Theatre is used to provide a forum for the exchange of diverse experiences in such contexts as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations examining on racial conflict and reconciliation; incarcerated men and women; immigrant and refugee organizations and their host communities; events honoring human rights.
Other examples include:
A project in Afghanistan trains victims of violence to enact each other's stories in the context of transitional justice.
A project in Melbourne, Australia trains youth to enact stories of refugee youths' experiences in the context of interactions with police; and to enact stories of police experiences in the context of interactions with refugee youth. The purpose of which is to bridge understanding between these two groups (2010, 2011).
Since the mid-1990s Playback Theatre and allied techniques have increasingly been used as an effective tool in workplace training of subjects such as management and communication skills and diversity awareness. In some cases, participants describe events which have taken place in the workplace, often events which gave rise to conflict or difficult feelings. Playback actors "replay" the events described and the facilitator orchestrates discussion about the replay, from which many participants describe valuable learning outcomes. [14] A workplace performance can also invite any kind of stories, from out of the work environment.
Although Playback Theatre is not primarily a therapeutic technique, it is adaptable for use by therapists who are also trained in Playback Theatre. Clients can gain insight, catharsis, connection, and self-expression through telling their stories and participating in enacting stories of others. [15]
Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted, created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, action, story, and characters are created collaboratively by the players as the improvisation unfolds in present time, without use of an already prepared, written script.
Storytelling is the social and cultural activity of sharing stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatrics or embellishment. Every culture has its own stories or narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation or instilling moral values. Crucial elements of stories and storytelling include plot, characters and narrative point of view. The term "storytelling" can refer specifically to oral storytelling but also broadly to techniques used in other media to unfold or disclose the narrative of a story.
Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen – but it is also related to both the old French word "emprouer" and the English "improve", to improve. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of improvisation can apply to many different faculties across all artistic, scientific, physical, cognitive, academic, and non-academic disciplines; see Applied improvisation.
A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors and aspects of production. The director's function is to ensure the quality and completeness of theatre production and to lead the members of the creative team into realizing their artistic vision for it. The director thereby collaborates with a team of creative individuals and other staff to coordinate research and work on all the aspects of the production which includes the Technical and the Performance aspects. The technical aspects include: stagecraft, costume design, theatrical properties (props), lighting design, set design, and sound design for the production. The performance aspects include: acting, dance, orchestra, chants, and stage combat.
Psychodrama is an action method, often used as a psychotherapy, in which clients use spontaneous dramatization, role playing, and dramatic self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into their lives. Developed by Jacob L. Moreno and his wife Zerka Toeman Moreno, psychodrama includes elements of theater, often conducted on a stage, or a space that serves as a stage area, where props can be used. A psychodrama therapy group, under the direction of a licensed psychodramatist, reenacts real-life, past situations, acting them out in present time. Participants then have the opportunity to evaluate their behavior, reflect on how the past incident is getting played out in the present and more deeply understand particular situations in their lives.
Viola Spolin was an American theatre academic, educator and acting coach. She is considered an important innovator in 20th century American theater for creating directorial techniques to help actors to be focused in the present moment and to find choices improvisationally, as if in real life. These acting exercises she later called Theater Games and formed the first body of work that enabled other directors and actors to create improvisational theater. Her book Improvisation for the Theater, which published these techniques, includes her philosophy and her teaching and coaching methods, and is considered the "bible of improvisational theater". Spolin's contributions were seminal to the improvisational theater movement in the U.S. She is considered to be the mother of Improvisational theater. Her work has influenced American theater, television and film by providing new tools and techniques that are now used by actors, directors and writers.
Donald Keith Johnstone was a British-Canadian educator and theatre director. A pioneer of improvisational theatre, he was best known for inventing the Impro System, part of which are the Theatresports. He was also an educator, playwright, actor and theatre director.
Christopher Joseph Burke is an American actor. He has become best known for his character Charles "Corky" Thatcher on the television series Life Goes On.
Jacob Levy Moreno was a Romanian-American psychiatrist, psychosociologist, and educator, the founder of psychodrama, and the foremost pioneer of group psychotherapy. During his lifetime, he was recognized as one of the leading social scientists.
BATS Improv is a non-profit improvisational theatre company in San Francisco. Founded in 1986, their unique style of acting-based improvisational theatre is well known in improv circles around the world. BATS is the largest improvisational theatre company and school in Northern California.
Applied drama is an umbrella term for the use of theatrical practices and creativity that takes participants and audience members further than mainstream theatre. It is often in response to conventional people with real life stories. The work often happens in non-conventional theatre spaces and social settings. There are several forms and practices considered to be under the umbrella of applied theatre.
Danielle Caroline Schneider is an American actress, writer, and improvisational comedian from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. She co-created and starred in the Hulu reality TV parody series The Hotwives and currently co-hosts the podcast Bitch Sesh.
NODA has a membership of 2500 amateur theatre groups and 1000 individual enthusiasts throughout the UK, staging musicals, operas, plays, concerts and pantomimes in a wide variety of performing venues, ranging from the country's leading professional theatres to tiny village halls.
The Wellington Improvisation Troupe (WIT) is a not-for-profit, community-based improvisational theatre group in Wellington, New Zealand. It is run by a committee elected by and from its forty to sixty active members. WIT performs both long and short-form improvisation.
Theatre of India is one of the most ancient forms of theatre and it features a detailed textual, sculptural, and dramatic effects which emerged in mid first millennium BC. Like in the areas of music and dance, the Indian theatre is also defined by the dramatic performance based on the concept of Nritya, which is a Sanskrit word for drama but encompasses dramatic narrative, virtuosic dance, and music. Historically, Indian theatre has exerted influence beyond its borders, reaching ancient China and other countries in the Far East.
Rapid Fire Theatre (RFT) is an improvisational theatre company based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Interactive theatre is a presentational or theatrical form or work that breaks the "fourth wall" that traditionally separates the performer from the audience both physically and verbally.
Eric Forsberg is an American writer. He wrote and directed the feature film Mega Piranha, as well as the writer of the feature film Snakes on a Train, one of the first mockbusters produced and released by The Asylum. He also wrote the screenplays for 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea and War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave, also for The Asylum. He directed the film Alien Abduction which aired on Sci Fi Channel, as well as Night of the Dead which aired on Chiller TV. Other writer and director credits include the political thriller Torture Room, and the stoner comedy Sex Pot as well as Monster, Almighty Thor, Arachnoquake, and Age of the Hobbits. He also worked as a Co-Producer and assistant director on numerous films for Christopher Coppola and Alain Silver, including White Nights, Bel Air, and Palmer's Pickup. In his early years Forsberg was an improvisational comedy instructor at The Players Workshop and The Second City Training Center in Chicago.
Josh Fox is an American film director, playwright and environmental activist, best known for his Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning 2010 documentary, Gasland. He is the founder and artistic director of a film and theater company in New York City, International WOW, and has contributed as a journalist to Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, NowThis, AJ+ and Huffington Post.
Experimental theatre in the Arab world emerged in the post-colonial era as a fusion of Western theatrical traditions with local performance cultures such as music and dance. It is characterized by hybridity as it transposes Arabic traditional performances that were usually seen in public squares and marketplaces to theatre buildings. Experimental theatre in the Arab world has historically taken forms of Forum theatre by using audience participation as a way to smooth conflicts and resolve social tension. The audience is then transformed from a commonly passive into a proactive and involved one. It has been seen as a form of theatre of resistance and cultural activism as it deals with contemporary sensitive issues of the region such as the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the Arab Spring, the role of women in Arabic society and religion. Such issues are often dealt with using humour. Throughout the years, experimental theatre in the Arab world has gradually converted into a synonymous of non-mainstream and underground art movements in which artists are always evolving and breaking down conventional markers between actors and spectators. The script combines the appropriation and dis-appropriation of Western models and is usually organic, more improvisational and self-reflexive. In the late 2000s, improvisational theatre which takes forms of stand-up comedy shows has also emerged around the Arab world.
