About Vancouver Playback Theatre

Using sound, movement, text, music and fabric, Vancouver Playback Theatre reenacts and honours an individual’s personal story while simultaneously illuminating underlying universal themes that create our common humanity. At a deep level, one has the experience of, “we are in this together”, and “we share this story together”, building empathy and understanding. When people share their personal stories in this fashion, a profound shift occurs in their willingness to focus on commonalities rather than judgment of others, facilitating the building of trust and connection among a wide diversity of people. In this manner, Playback Theatre promotes understanding and compassion, and has been used in many challenging contexts, including bullying in schools, cross-cultural disputes, and political and religious conflicts around the world.

Vancouver Playback Theatre (VPT) is composed of multi-talented professionals with skills and experience in many areas, including group facilitation, adult education, training, counselling, coaching, organizational development, leadership, acting, singing, and musical composition. 

VPT’s wide range of clients includes Vancouver Community College, Amnesty International, Continuing Legal Education of British Columbia, Disability Resource Network of BC, Genome BC, International Society for Performance Instruction, Thompson Rivers University, Richmond Multicultural Community Services, Peace It Together, Greater Vancouver Mental Health, Vancouver/Richmond Health Board, Rare Disease Foundation, World Peace Forum, Students Wanting to Encourage Education and Prevention on Drugs and Alcohol, Unity of Vancouver, and the B.C. Psychologists Association.

VPT offers a wide variety of services, including public and conference performances, workplace conflict resolution workshops, peace-building in schools, community engagement projects, and Playback skills training, in person (when possible) and virtually (via ZOOM).