Playback Theatre

Playback Theatre cast members

From Staff Reports

Children sit in a circle, eyes focused, mouths half open, under the spell of the storyteller’s tale of another time and place. 

Rocking chairs creak on the porch as memories across the generations are shared. Over a cup of tea, a beer, a campfire or a pulpit, stories bring us closer together, renew a sense of what is important, and give meaning to our lives.



All
theatre is made up of stories. But not all theatre is made up of
true-life stories. Playback Theatre is just that – theatre based on
real everyday moments of our lives. The stories brought to a
performance by the audience become the “script” for the evening. Actors
listen as an experience is shared, then improvise a retelling of the
story, using all the theatrical tools at their disposal – movement,
words, song, music, and creative inspiration. The “playback” honors the
storyteller, recreating a time when the community was strengthened by
the exchange of stories. The spontaneous improvisation is as close as a
theatre audience will get to the magic of the storyteller’s spell.


Asheville Playback Theatre has been performing in Western NC for twelve
years. The company is a part of a global network of playback groups
performing in some 35 countries around the world.

Playback is at home in small villages in India and Botswana, in
bustling cities such as San Paolo, New York and Hong Kong, and in
places as far-flung as Havana, Cuba and Melbourne, Australia.


Playback often finds itself outside traditional theatre walls. Many
companies take their actors to places where stories are not often told,
or heard – prisons, senior centers, or arenas of conflict and social
tension. A safe place for stories to be heard is created, and what
follows can be as simple as a room full of people laughing together or
as profound as a deep shift in generations-old misunderstandings.


Asheville’s Playback Theatre comprises 15 members and has balanced its
focus between performing in conventional theatre settings and for
marginalized groups. The company rehearses in a community center
provided by Asheville Parks and Recreation and offers bi-monthly public
performances at the BeBe Theatre in downtown Asheville. They also teach
students of all ages and work in corporate settings.


“Playback Theater is a creative, interactive, and potent tool for the
times we live in,” says Managing Director Raphael Peter. “Through
personal stories, Playback gives voice to people’s personal concerns
and triumphs in a compassionate way. We perform for senior centers,
at-risk youth, mental health facilities, and prisons. Playback in other
cities has helped in the aftermath of Katrina, when the towers fell on
9/11, and at various conflicts around the world – helping people share
and transform their shock, grief, rage and fear. It’s artistic,
innovative, and educational.”


Building a community of neighbors


This season the company is dedicating its five public shows to the
Theme of “Building a Community of Neighbors.” Each performance has a
topic, and the invitation to the audience is to bring stories that
illuminate aspects of community they experience in their lives. APT is
excited to use this unique style of theatre to bring people into
conversation who might never meet in their daily routines.


The combination of skilled performers, the immediacy of real life
stories, and the safety created by this welcoming, honoring form makes
every evening of playback theatre unique and meaningful.


The season includes four productions: “When I am ‘the Other’” (November
10); “Men are from Asheville/Women are from Asheville” (January 19);
“What is it to be a Child?” (March 16), and “Transitions” (June 15).


All shows are at 8:00 p.m. at the BeBe Theatre, 20 Commerce St.,
Asheville, NC. For more information contact Raphael Peter, Managing
Director, at 828-665-4774 or by email at
[email protected]. Or contact Deborah Scott, Artistic
Director, at 828-274-8315, or by email at [email protected].