It is possible to connect communities through a few pieces of fabric, blocks and true stories.
On Sept. 5-6, Christina Howard, the director of the first Playback company at Taylor University, taught about Playback Theatre, helping students step into the worlds of other people’s stories.
“There are two rules,” Howard said. “It has to be true, and it has to be about you.”
Playback is an improvisational form of applied theater in which audience members share personal stories, which are then presented by the conductor and acted out by a troupe of actors, often accompanied by music. The stories can be emotional, dealing with difficult topics, or lighthearted, remembering good times, but the performances aim to provide healing and perspective.
Each show is approximately an hour long, and every theme is rooted in a real-life event.
“Retell it as a dramatic fairy tale, or an over-the-top adventure story, or just kind of reframing the same plot points, but just in a bigger or more fantastic world,” Conner Reagan, a former Playback performer and the assistant conductor during the workshop, said.
The workshop’s goal was to teach participants the rules and techniques of Playback while giving an opportunity for those interested to potentially form a new troupe.
During the workshop, everyone participated in warm-up games, then learned and tried short-form and long-form sequences. Stories with laughter, fear and tears were shared, along with a hope of relief and closure as the volunteers leaned on the troupe’s reenactments.
“At the end of every story, the whole troupe will just make this gift gesture towards the person who told the story,” Reagan said. “There’s a gift to you.”
Playback focuses on intentional, personal stories in an effort to make each person feel seen and heard. The four actors' only tools are a variety of colored fabrics and four blocks.
There is a complete sense of communion between the actors and the audience, Cameron Damesworth, a junior musical theatre major who attended the workshop, said.
“Playback is an opportunity to connect to other people that you might not realize that you have similarities with,” Howard said. “We can recognize each other's humanity, and we can recognize each other's shared emotion and find ways to connect and love each other well and see and hear each other well.”
The workshop was just the beginning.
Playback has been used in diverse settings, like juvenile detention centers, to foster understanding between different communities. Taylor University seeks to do the same for people, even outside of Upland.
“It's a really cool opportunity to sort of lift up the voices of people who might not feel like their stories are being told,” Howard said. “Ideally, we would love for this group to be able to go out into the community, into spaces where we are interacting with people who feel like they're not being heard so that we can put their stories on stage.”
Playback is looking for students who have empathetic hearts and care about hearing people's stories. The troupe is made up of people who desire to be on stage and work in a team with other passionate storytellers.
Even when it feels hard to relate to someone else, there are ways to have an impact on other people’s lives by helping them feel heard and understood, Howard said.
“They can recreate those stories in ways that are sensitive and life-giving and as a gift to the person, so they can kind of see it with some perspective and maybe find some closure,” Reagan said.
Howard and Reagan are still looking for students who are interested in telling these stories. For anyone interested in being a part of the new company, reach out to Taylor Theatre for more information.
