Playback Theatre
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
— Maya Angelou
Playback Theatre offers a pathway towards creative, embodied and empathic connections between people.
In a Playback Theatre event, people share true stories from their own lives, and watch as a team of actors, or fellow community members, transform these accounts into improvised theatre pieces.
Playback was developed in the 1970's by Jonathan Fox, Jo Salas and the original Playback Theatre company in Hudson Valley, New York. Since then, Playback has spread to over 60 countries where it is used as a tool for community building, cultural activism and collective trauma response.
If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear.
— Joanna Macy
I began practising Playback Theatre in 2007. I started my journey as a member of the Hobart Playback Theatre group in Tasmania, Australia. I then moved to the USA where I joined Kairos Theatre – a social justice ensemble that used Playback Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed with disenfranchised communities in the Bay Area and Central Valley, California.
During my time in the USA I trained with the founders of Playback Theatre, Jo Salas and Jonathan Fox. I have also trained with Armand Volkas, Aviva Apel-Rosenthal, Jiwon Chung and others.
In 2012 I graduated from the Playback Theatre Leadership program and went on to become an Accredited Playback Theatre Trainer through the Centre for Playback Theatre, New York.
In 2016 I completed a PhD at the University of New England, Australia. My research explored the use of Playback Theatre for cultural activism and collective trauma response. The bulk of my fieldwork occurred in Occupied Palestine where I co-founded The Freedom Bus project, an initiative that used Playback Theatre and other art forms to bear witness and raise awareness about the impact of Israeli apartheid, settler colonialism and the military occupation of Palestinian lands.
While living in Palestine, I began leading Playback Theatre workshops in other parts of the Middle East, helping to train and establish Playback troupes in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. During that time, I co-founded the Arab School of Playback Theatre (ASPT), based in Adonis, Lebanon. ASPT is an affiliate school of the Centre for Playback Theatre and offers accredited workshops throughout the Middle East.
My research and writings on Playback Theatre, sociodrama and drama therapy have been published in book chapters and in some of the world’s leading drama and applied theatre journals including Applied Theatre Research, Research in Drama Education, The Drama Review, International Playback Theatre Journal, The British Journal of Psychodrama and Sociodrama, and the Drama Therapy Review.
I now teach and mentor Playback Theatre groups and practitioners around the world. In addition to introductory courses, I lead Playback trainings on conducting, trauma-informed practice, social change and the integration of psychodrama and drama therapy with Playback Theatre. I also offer Playback workshops that explore the application of Viewpoints, and the Roy Hart Voice Method.