Healing York Playback's blog

We've just five days to go before our debut public performance of Healing York Playback, and i dare say, after last night, it seems clear that we're ready.

The very real stories and seamless playing reminded me that even in "rehearsal", we're serving people in their real stories.

Sunday was a special Playback session with our core Healing York group. Practicing for the first time at the historic York Friends Meeting House on West Philadelphia Street, we enjoyed the cozy and seemingly sacred space and the sense of support it offered our work and play.

Last week our Playback group tried a new form of playing stories solo and had some really wonderful results. A "red thread" developed along the lines of gender and "being comfortable in our own skin" and provoked some powerful reflection in each of us.

Now the end of this calendar year is drawing near and the holiday season with it. I am seriously considering planning another Playback Sampler workshop in York and/or Lancaster (Marietta, probably).

The Healing York Playback project was launched out of the need for Yorkers to tell their stories around the hurt and healing of racism and violence in the city -- and have those stories be heard. After months of planning, publicity and recruiting, a sampler workshop was organized on Saturday, September 22, 2007. Nine people were in attendance at the William Penn Performing Arts Institute with folks from a range of ages and ethnic backgrounds. After five intensive hours of playing, acting and stories, the workshop was enthusiastically endorsed by participants as a strong beginning toward a Playback ensemble that could serve the greater York community.

We had a wonderful Playback Sampler workshop this Saturday at the William Penn Performing Arts Institute (York, PA). The overriding sense of the gathering on departure was enthusiasm for MORE of what we had begun -- a Playback Theatre process of sharing stories around our experiences with diversity and racism.

The day began with a deflation of expectation. Seven people who pre-registered failed to make it. Four of these had been prospectively interested in the longer-term project, putting into question the viability of the project's ensemble. The next such community workshop (if and when) will certainly have at least a nominal fee or deposit.