A BEAUTIFUL UNION - ­ PROJECT TROUBADOR AND PLAYBACK THEATER
 By Rebecca Kalin, March 2002

     Playback Theater is a form of improvisational theater that allows participants to explore social issues and examine alternative solutions through the reenactment of personal stories. With the intent of investigating its appropriateness for behavioral change purposes in third world settings, Project Troubador Executive Director Louise Lindenmeyr and Board member Rebecca Kalin enrolled and participated in an intensive Playback Theater training workshop. The four-day session was held in Accord, New York between February 23rd and 26th, 2002.

     The Core Training course covered the basic techniques of the playback experience. Workshop participants explored and developed the classic playback forms - scenes, fluid sculptures, pairs, and tableau stories, and the key playback roles of conductor, musician and actor. The exercises offered ample opportunity to practice playback techniques, improve performance skills, develop greater role familiarity, as well as, personal and team awareness.

     While both Playback Theater and Project Troubador rely on a direct, no-frills theatrical dynamic, the cultural assumptions of Playback Theater make its applicability for traditional Project Troubador audiences questionable. As it is practiced in this country, Playback Theater is animated by the public telling of personal stories.  Most African audiences, both Lindenmeyr and Kalin believe, would be far too embarrassed to tell personal stories about such important, but sensitive, public health issues as condom use, family planning, and sexual gender-based violence.

     An adaptation of Playback techniques, however, seems promising. By allowing for a fictional collective story or consolidation of several personal stories, an improvisational theater experience could still explore social issues and identify realistic solutions ­ and, at the same time, maintain anonymity. The power of Playback Theater is that allows trained and untrained actors to take on another's role, or step into another's character, and present that persona in a particular situation. It helps people appreciate the situation of others, and to develop problem solving and conflict resolution skills. Although Playback may not be immediately transferable "as-is", its value is real and further exploration and brainstorming is called for.

     Many thanks to the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation and the Martha Boschen Porter Fund for their help in funding this training. For more information on Playback Theater, contact them at playbacknet.org/school.

SEVEN MONTHS LATER....
September, 2002

Playback Theater makes its debut in Cameroon this October as two seasoned "Playbackers,"  Hannah Fox and Marquerite Hamden, join the fourth troupe to tour the Northwest Province of Cameroon.  Experimenting with some Playback techniques in the creation of a new piece addressing the multi-layered issues concerning HIV/AIDS in Cameroon, we will use local stories gleaned from skits, anecdotes, songs and real life experiences  collected over the past five years.  The women's advocacy group Kongadzem will again host the two-and-a-half week visit, introducing our troupe to secondary school students and rural villagers and conducting question and answer sessions at the end of each performance.  One actor from a youth group sponsored by Kongadzem will travel and perform with us, learning some of these new techniques.  A workshop run by Playback instructor Hannah Fox at the end of the tour will teach seven more young actors the basics of Playback Theater. Supported by a follow-up grant and led by the young Cameroonian actor who traveled with us, this theater group will bring its talents to schools and gatherings throughout the region after we depart.

Rebecca Kalin has an MPH in Public Health and an MA in Communications. She is the a creative campaign designer of public health and basic education initiatives