Playback Theatre Workshop

A brief background to Playback Theatre

Playback Theatre, in which audience members tell personal stories and watch as a team of actors re-enact the stories, was developed by Jonathan Fox and the original Playback theatre troupe in the mid seventies as one way of integrating the personal aspect of a person’s life story and the public aspect of performance. Playback theatre is now done by over 300 companies in over 50 countries and growing. This form of theatre is both healing and empowering and is used in a variety of clinical and non-clinical settings including prisons, schools, mental health settings, corporations, and is performed in open audience performance to bear witness to personal stories of the audience. It is used for conflict resolution and to give voice to those who have experienced natural disasters and trauma.

Playback theatre allows both the teller of a story and the audiences the opportunity to relive memories be they happy, sad, or funny. The result is often a deeper sense of community, and a sense that “My” story is really “Our” story. The vision of Playback Theatre is to enable communities of all kinds to come together in a way that creates community.

The process of Playback is deceivingly simple. At one level, we are playing back a persons story from his/her life. Yet, the act of creating the safety that allows anyone to tell the story is important, as well as the ability to listen deeply, not so much with our ears, but from our heart to the tellers story, and bear witness to it through the enactment as a way of giving them a gift. As an actor, we receive these stories as a gift, and it is important then to hand back to the individual as well as to the audience as a whole.

Dates 

November 9 & 10 - Monday and Tuesday at the Madras University(English department) Contact Magdalene Jeyarathnam 9884100135 if you wish to join this workshop and you are not from Madras University.

November 11 & 12 - Wednesday and Thursday at Karur for a theatre group organised by Christi Swamy.

November 14 & 15 - Saturday and Sunday at AICUF, students have a discount if you show your ID card and if you are not a student you can pay a registration fee of Rs 750/ - A simple lunch and tea is organised. Register with Center for Counselling 9884700135.

S.No	Names	E.mail IDs and phone numbers
1	R.Naveen	naveen andrew@ymail.com andrewnaveen@ymail.com
2	D.Maria Edward Raj	9962895467 mariaedward.edwin@gmail.com
3	P.K.Vinoth	kumarnathan@yahoo.com vinothdeva@ymail.com
4	John F Romeo	John,explorer@gmail.com
5	E.K.Narasimman	narasimmanek@ymail.com
6	Gejoy.K	gejoy.k@gmail.com 9884032435
7	M.Gasper Vincent	9952525966 v.ajay_2007@yahoo.com
8	Saral V
9	A.Glory	9941005977
10	G.Kavitha	gp_kavi@yahoo.com
11	Alicia Prarthana	alicia. stephen@gmail.com
12	Dhanalakshmi.R
13	V.Kamatchi	994192999
14	Lapdiang Artimai Syiem	lapdiang@yahoo.co.in 9043753490
15	DR.Aubudurai	dr_anbudurai@yahoo.com 9884062620
16	M.K. Joseph James	9444472353 joejamesmk@yahoo.co.in jjamesmk@gmail.com
17	Sabastian	9444825765 sebastin01@yahoo.com sebastinsathish@ymail.com
18	Jennie kristal
19	Magdalene Jeyerathinam

Profile of Jennie Kristel

Jen Kristel, M.A. has a Masters in Expressive Arts Therapy. She is certified as an Expressive Therapist. She is a Master/Teacher of the Usui Method of Reiki and Karuna Reiki. She is certified as a trainer of the Playback Theatre Method, and teaches this as well as Art Therapy both in the States and internationally. She is a lead foreign adviser for the Bangladesh Therapeutic Theatre Institute and supervises students and on going projects there. Based in Vermont USA, Jen teaches the expressive therapies at Burlington College and has a private practice.Jen's background includes training in Jungian Dreamwork and Dream Theatre (with Jeremy Taylor) and comes from a Jungian/Humanist perspective. Over the years, she has worked in clinical and non-clinical settings bringing the arts to people as a way to support them in healing. She is looking forward to bringing this very important work to Chennai.