Playback theatre and psychotherapeutic playback theatre

Domain VIII · Creative & expressive arts therapies · Jonathan Fox, Jo Salas, Ronen Kowalsky · 1975 · New York State

What it is

Playback theatre is an improvised theatre in which an audience or group member (the teller) tells a real experience from their life, a conductor interviews them, and actors with a musician enact it on the spot. The teller then responds to what they saw. It began in New York State in the mid-1970s,…

Format

• No phased treatment manual has been published. The structures below are the performance ritual and the session formats sources describe.
• A. Single performance or session (classical ritual)

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Version followed: classical playback theatre (Jonathan Fox and Jo Salas; Centre for Playback Theatre lineage) as its performance ritual is described by practitioners and the Centre's Code of Ethics; and psychotherapeutic playback theatre as the Israeli Institute of Psychotherapeutic Playback Theater (Ronen Kowalsky, also spelled Kovalsky; Nir Raz) and the Kowalsky, Raz and Keisari book present it (Hebrew edition…
• What it is. Playback theatre is an improvised theatre in which an audience or group member (the teller) tells a real experience from their life, a conductor interviews them, and actors with a musician enact it on the spot. The teller then responds to what they saw. It began in New York State in the mid-1970s, with Jonathan Fox and Jo Salas and the original company. Sources disagree on the year: 1975 in upstate New…
• Professional frame. Playback theatre has no regulated profession. Practitioners and trainers commit to the Centre's Code of Ethics, which requires adequate training and supervision and practice only within one's competence. Training runs through the Centre for Playback Theatre and affiliated national schools; the Institute trains therapists in PPT. My recommendation: use playback as therapy, meaning with clinical…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Anyone visibly unsettled. See aftercare, 5.6.
• Being consistent with this phrase helps tellers and audiences feel held by the ritual.
• : Which angle the teller picks up on. That is often the part they are ready to work with.
• Offer a transformation as an option, not an expectation. Many stories need only to be witnessed.
• : Choose the episodes from the teller's own words in the interview, so each one is recognisable.

Problems the guide addresses

• No one volunteers / stuck room
• Resistance and non-adherence (clinical groups)
• Overwhelm and retraumatisation during telling or enactment
• Ruptures
• Prejudice or harm toward absent others in a story
• Public performance: teller consent, audience safety and aftercare
• Children and young people
• Physical and touch safety
• Modality-specific: when playback is not enough

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.