Over the 2 weekends of August 2025, I joined the first Playback Theatre Core Training, led by Michael Cheng. I revisited the basics of the applied theatre form, Playback Theatre.
The course was under Singapore Drama Educators' Association, its first as the affiliate school of Centre for Playback Theatre.
BACKGROUND
Playback Theatre is an applied theatre form where audience members are invited to share their personal stories. The Playback Theatre troop would then reenact the story through improvisation and spontaneity. Usually the performances are done with members of a particular community or with stories around an identified theme.
This Core Training included an introduction to the fundamental roles within Playback Theatre: Teller (the audience member who shares their story), Conductor, Musician and Actor. We also learnt the basic playback theatre forms that can be used during the performance.
LEARNING POINTS
I had encountered Playback Theatre before. However, I thought that it was a valuable reminder to have gone through this course with people from different walks of life - people who had varying levels of exposure to the arts and theatre. On one hand, it had me thinking about how to scaffold the process of learning theatrical devices and dramatic conventions in a delicate and gentle way without discouraging them. Improvisation is after all - with many other actors on stage - is a really tough skill! Yet, on the other hand, I've been thinking about the point of not being too abstract that the re-enactment might become too alien for the Teller and the wider audience. I relate to this discomfort, through my own confrontations with my own discomfort and unfamiliarity with music during these 4 days, and conducted for a few parts of the session. Trying to do justice to an heartfelt sharing from the community with a novel artform in an improvised performance is a tall order!
I also appreciated the breadth of the sharing. Learning for example that there is a Level 2 class on "Company Life" made me realise it was something I had overlooked in the thinking about Playback Theatre. There is more to sustaining (what I had not realised was) a creative troop / collective. And yet, in a way, it is also a question that can be extrapolated to Playback within communities. How do we sustain the impact? And how do we sustain playbackers?
As someone who is trying my darnest to balance an arts practice while having day job, I find comfort in the school of thought that playbackers should not do playback full-time - as they would continue "living in the real world", to be able to relate to the community and the world. In perhaps a very twisted way, it has helped the embers be a little warmer.ANNEX: COURSE SCHEDULE
Date | Time | Module(s) | Venue |
23 Aug 2025 (Sat) | 9.30am - 6pm |
| Goodman Arts Centre |
24 Aug 2025 (Sun) | 9.30am - 6pm |
| Goodman Arts Centre |
30 Aug 2025 (Sat) | 9.30am - 6pm |
| Goodman Arts Centre |
31 Aug 2025 (Sun) | 9.30am - 6pm |
| Goodman Arts Centre |
Playback Theatre Core Training (n.d.). SDEA. https://sdea.wildapricot.org/event-6175309