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Playback Theatre: Live and Real

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posted on 2025-01-16, 05:38 authored by Drew BirdDrew Bird
Playback theatre is an improvised community theatre form where members of the retreat audience were actively engaged in co-creating stories with stage actors. Members of the retreat audience who wanted to share a story were invited up onto stage by the conductor, an onstage director, who helped to elicit stories from the audience member, known as the teller. Once the main features of the story have been shared the conductor informs the actors in what shape or form the story will be improvised and played back in. The actors respond to the teller’s story that can be both literal and symbolic, employing creative licence to capture the story's essence. Before the live performance neither the actors nor the conductor knows what stories, the retreat audience will present. Playback actors rehearse using the forms or shapes for the improvisation under the guidance of the conductor and director, but no one knows what stories the audience will present. The performance is live and unpredictable, which makes it exciting and full of risks. On the final evening of the retreat attendees of the 2024 Creative Mental Health Forum were invited to share stories and collectively reflect on their experiences across the shared weekend.

History

Add to Elements

  • Yes

NTRO Output Type

  • Live Performance of Creative Work

NTRO Output Category

  • Live Performance of Creative Work : Play

Place

Inverloch, Victoria, Australia.

Venue

Community Hub, Main Hall, 16 Abeckett Street, Inverloch.

NTRO Publisher

2024 Creative Mental Health Forum and Self Care Retreat.

Start Date

2024-05-05

End Date

2024-05-05

Medium

Directing.

Research Statement

Playback is a community theatre form that is inclusive, enabling active audience participation in co-creating theatre through the sharing of stories. There is limited exploration of playback theatre as auto-ethnographic research. To empower the audience by giving them a voice, challenging traditional forms of theatre where the audience are passive. The research explores how the creation of stories is a collaborative endeavour and like auto-ethnographic research is dependent on relationship. The actor’s transformation of the teller’s story reflects auto-ethnographic practice, that enables the teller to apply learning in a new context. The new concept revealed how individual stories have universal implications and reflects auto-ethnographic research. The audience as active agent, story tellers and co-creators challenges the traditional theatre making processes that inhibit audience contribution. The audience consisted of creative arts therapist who are professional members of the Australia, New Zealand and Asia Creative Arts Therapies Association (ANZACATA). Made up of art therapists, dance therapists and drama therapists who witnessed ‘playback theatre, live and real’, can testify to the performance excellence as evidenced through the formal evaluation that took place at the end of the performance. The playback performance was evaluated formally through written feedback by those at the performance. The audience consisted of creative arts therapies practitioners and researchers who would be able to verify how playback theatre is a new context for deepening understanding of relationships through transformative power of story.

Size or Duration of Work

1 hour, 15 minutes.

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