Storytelling on Screen: An Online Playback Theatre Archive and Guidebook

How to Use the Archive and Guidebook

If you’re brand new to Playback Theatre and have never seen a performance before, you might go right to the guidebook and start reading “What Is Playback Theatre?” or start by watching one or all of the videos in the archive, via this YouTube playlist. (Each of the performances are between one and two hours long and demonstrate many of the classic elements of a Playback Theatre show.)

We’ve designed this archive and guidebook so that users can make use of it in a variety of ways, depending on their interest, skill level, or familiarity with Playback. If you’re looking to take a deeper dive, we encourage you to read the entire guidebook (or specific portions you find interesting) and refer to the hyperlinked sections of each video as examples. In the section on “Forms,” we include time-coded hyperlinks that lead you to the spots in each performance where you can see a given style of enactment in action. Note, that to help readers understand the role of the conductor, including how a form is chosen, the hyperlinks will drop you off at the point in the performance when the conductor asks a question or makes a transition that precipitates the next teller’s offering. In this way, we hope you can see a few of the varieties of ways the Playback ritual may unfold, even inside the context of the same form.

A detailed look at the guidebook and hyperlinks may—for those forms for which we offer multiple examples (like Fluid Sculpture or Perspectives)—allow you to compare and contrast the way a given form is used from one company to another to understand some of the numerous ways in which forms may be deployed to create theatrical and sensitive Playback.

Note also for posterity and preservation, each of the full-length recordings is stored not only on YouTube but also on VTechworks. VTechworks is the free, open access, institutional repository at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, where their institution’s University Libraries are largely responsible for funding and publishing this project. While the hyperlinks in the Forms section direct readers/viewers to the versions of these recordings on YouTube, the information in those time stamps could also be used to navigate to the appropriate sections of the recordings on VTechworks, which are both playable on the web and downloadable. Links to the VTechworks files are available in the section of this guidebook entitled “The Archive.”

If you are an artist, educator, or theatre-maker reviewing or using this book, we would love to know how you are using this work. https://bit.ly/playback_interest