Author Archives: chris

Coverage from Lancaster Newspapers: How River Crossing Playback Theatre helps loved ones grieve

Article by Gayle Johnson appear in LancasterOnline, February 13, 2022

Preface: Kudos to Gayle Johnson from LNP/Lancaster Newspapers including her patient research to get both a deeper and broader perspective of how Playback Theatre heals.

Karen Carnabucci’s mother-in-law died during the height of the pandemic, when houses of worship, schools and most public life shut down or went online. The Lancaster therapist couldn’t gather with friends or cry with extended family members to process her overwhelming grief.

Cary Miller tells a different story. The Lancaster education consultant’s father died in January. Miller was able to travel to New Jersey for the burial, where she hugged and held hands with loved ones who mourned with her. Still, devastating sadness remained.

Both women say they found healing online through River Crossing Playback Theatre. The volunteer organization, which started in 2007, combines improvisation, music and audience participation to honor and show empathy for individual stories. Founder and director Chris Fitz, of Marietta, says participants are welcomed into an atmosphere of compassion and understanding.

“Most people can relate because they’ve experienced similar feelings or incidents,” Fitz says. The theater troupe, which counts on donations to operate, serves south-central Pennsylvania and has eight members, down from about 10 before the pandemic.

For Carnabucci, help came from an online memorial that featured troupe members recreating events in her mother-in-law’s life. Friends and family from around the globe were invited to participate. The solace from that event “was an exceptional way to create community,” recalls Carnabucci, who was a features editor for the former Intelligencer Journal, now LNP |LancasterOnline.

Miller said the same of her own experience. “It was deeply healing on an emotional level.” She participated in an online open rehearsal in which audience members shared a difficult or painful memory. Miller talked about her feelings from her father’s death and other life changes, then watched as actors processed and interpreted those feelings through short improvisational vignettes.

“I’m a very creative and expressive person,” Miller says. “I needed a space to be spontaneous and creative with a sort of therapeutic element.”

Before the pandemic, River Crossing used auditoriums, rooms and church basements in Lancaster and York to bring people together. These days, actors, musicians and participants meet on Zoom, although Fitz hopes that may change this summer.

OPEN REHEARSAL

River Crossing Playback Theatre’s holds open practices every Third Friday this spring, 7-9 pm. To register and donate, click here.

Humanizing stories

Playback Theatre has roots in psychodrama, a form of psychotherapy that encourages clients to role play and act out issues or problems. The playback movement began in 1975 in New York before it spread across the world, says Clarissa Worcester, who coordinates Playback North America. The group brings together troupes in the United States and Canada for information, training and advice.

“In some ways, Playback Theatre has weathered the pandemic much better than other theater forms,” says Worcester, who is an assistant director of the Chicago Playback Theatre Troupe. “One major power is simultaneously validating and uplifting an individual while collecting stories.”

Worcester notes that Playback is not a substitute for therapy, but it can be therapeutic.

Lesley Huff holds the same view.

“There’s tremendous power in relationships and connections with other people. It doesn’t always have to be with a trained therapist,” says Huff, a licensed psychologist with Samaritan Counseling Center in Lancaster.

Huff teaches an online eight-week seminar called “Change Through Compassion,” which promotes resilience and self-compassion. The psychologist says she has studied Playback Theatre.

“When we talk about things at an intellectual level, we stay separate enough that we don’t have to experience it,” Huff says, explaining that people often remain numb to their feelings. Participating in playback, though, may result in a “guttural, emotional, nonintellectual moment,” she says. “To feel seen and validated has a tremendous amount of healing.”

Local productions

Locally, the two-hour River Crossing gathering, called an open rehearsal, begins as the leader checks in with the audience, asking participants about their day and their feelings. An individual receives an invitation to share a memory, problem or good news through a one- to five-minute retelling. Volunteer actors immediately process and create a spontaneous performance to bring that story to life before the audience and the author. The leader asks if the retelling seems true to his or her emotions. If not, the actors try again.

Joanne Walcerz, of Elizabethtown, began volunteering for River Crossing about 10 years ago.

“It’s important to listen to a person, hear their story and bring your own life experience to it,” says Walcerz, a massage therapist. “It’s very poignant.”

Though Walcerz has theater training from college, troupe volunteers need no acting experience. Online and in-person training outlines the basic tenets.

“We need to listen to one another in these challenging times,” she says. For instance, actors tell their own stories during private rehearsals. “I consider the people in my playback troupe my family. They know everything about me.”

Colleen Schields, a troupe actor and registered nurse in York, said the concept intrigued her. Schields, who has no prior acting experience, describes River Crossing as “an opportunity to tell stories with more than just our voices.” The process helped Schields become more expressive, she says.

River Crossing will host open rehearsals over Zoom on the third Friday of every month through May. Then, Fitz says, troupe members hope to offer in-person gatherings. People can register for the online meeting at the organization’s website, rivercrossingplayback.org.

Credit: LancasterOnline: original article at: https://lancasteronline.com/features/entertainment/how-river-crossing-playback-theatre-helps-loved-ones-grieve-through-performance/article_dad5a98c-8b40-11ec-8557-77c4799c2958.html

Open Practices Return Monthly via Zoom in 2022

Feeling the itch to play? Have you shared it — to extend this embodied, beloved community, to use a vision from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Friday, January 21, 2022 is the kick off of River Crossing Playback’s Third Friday Open Practices? Register now! 

We’re excited to invite you every month this spring to watch, listen, tell and play with us, developing a community of practice together. All levels of players are welcome as we continue to find meaningful, authentic joy in this work and play, even via Zoom. Here’s when:

  • Friday January 21, 7-9 pm
  • Friday, February 18, 7-9 pm
  • Friday, March 18, 7-9 pm
  • Friday, April 15, 7-9 pm
  • Friday, May 20, 7-9 pm

Each session engages our deep listening and improv skills, building a group “practice” of listening, telling and enacting stories through games, warm-up activities and Playback Theatre forms. Curious to join us? Read on…or register now

“I was honestly surprised. What started out feeling like obligation with a bit of curiosity turned into connection and amazing creative energy. I’m glad I came to this Open Practice.”

Cary Miller

Each evening follows this schedule (approximately):

7:00 pm – Arriving and welcoming each other
7:05 pm – Warming up and centering, physically and mentally
7:30 pm – Welcoming feelings in the room with Playback Theatre forms
8:15 pm – Welcoming stories in the room with Playback Theatre forms
8:45 pm – Reflections and closing

Why this? We offer Open Practice to build our expressive skills, our community connections and our capacity to create beauty and healing. We hope it leads to more transformative theatre throughout South Central Pennsylvania and beyond.

Arrive a few minutes before 7 PM to set up your Zoom connection. A computer and webcam is encouraged since handheld devices limit visibility and playing. Bring your favorite beverage…and loose-fitting clothes. So, see you there?

Register with your name, email and a $5-25 donation below. A Zoom link will follow. Donate $50 or more, and you’ll be registered for all five Third Friday practices! Contact us at rivercrossing@jubileearts.net or (717) 382-8292 with questions.

Open Rehearsals with River Crossing Playback Theatre

Workshop! A Taste of Playback Theatre

Learn improvisation that makes a difference

Sunday, March 22, 2020
10 am – 4 pm

Carriage House of Unitarian Universalist Congregation of York
950 South Duke Street, York, PA (street parking only)

Join us to learn and practice Playback Theatre, a form of improvisation, storytelling and community building, with the River Crossing Playback Theatre troupe. Led by Lenore Bajare Dukes, Cintra Harbold and Chris Fitz, the workshop will progress from warming up and tuning into our improvisational skills to learning “short forms” portraying emotional dynamics and “long forms” that capture the essence of stories. The workshop will give you tools to be a more fluid improviser, learning, playing and getting to know a passionate cast of community-minded improvisers, with even a delicious break for “afternoon tea.”

Learn a community-building improvisational theatre.
Discover your own stories.
Hone your intuition.
Play!

Suggested donation: $25 payable to “Jubilee Arts” by March 14, $35 thereafter.

Email rivercrossing@jubileearts.net or call (717) 382-8292.

Jumping In, Stepping Out – Learning Playback Theatre

Learn improvisation that makes a difference

Sunday, October 6, 2019
1:30-6:30 pm

Lancaster Friends Meeting; 110 Tulane Terrace, Lancaster, PA

Join us to learn and practice Playback Theatre, a form of improvisation, storytelling and community building, with the River Crossing Playback Theatre troupe. Led by Chris Fitz, the workshop will progress from warming up and tuning into our improvisational skills to learning “short forms” portraying emotional dynamics and “long forms” that capture the essence of stories. The workshop will give you tools to be a more fluid improviser, learning, playing and getting to know a passionate cast of community-minded improvisers, with even a delicious break for “afternoon tea.”

Learn a community-building improvisational theatre.
Discover your own stories.
Hone your intuition.
Play!

Suggested donation: $60 payable to “Jubilee Arts” by September 29, $75 thereafter.                    Email rivercrossing@jubileearts.net or call (717) 382-8292.

Open Rehearsals – First Wednesdays

You are invited on the first Wednesday of each month to join the River Crossing Playback ensemble in a free Open Rehearsal.

Come, watch or join in on any Wednesday, 7-9 pm at the Belmont Theatre, 27 South Belmont Ave in York, Pennsylvania (formerly York Little Theatre). The two hours, if you choose to participate fully, would include:

  • Physical warm-up or game to “get out of our heads” and wake up our creative improvisational capacities;
  • An embodied game or exercise to develop some aspect of improvisational skillset: listening, responding, moving, vocalizing, ensemble contact and more;
  • “Checking In” to say what’s “on top” for each of us and have that acknowledged using a responsive Playback theatre form;
  • Learning and using various Playback theatre forms to respond to the essence and deep notes of each check-in and story told.

The Open Rehearsal is a new offering in South Central PA to open the circle of the unique embodied process of Playback Theatre to strengthen our community connections, build skills for deep listening and enhance our innate capacity to create beauty in each moment.

Simply RSVP to rivercrossing@jubileearts.net by the prior Tuesday (24 hours) or call (717) 382-8292 with questions.

Arrive between 6:50-7 PM. Bring a water bottle. Wear loose-fitting clothes. See you there?

Exploring the Essence - and its ripple effects

Exploring the Essence: A Playback Theatre Retreat for Growth & Change

January 8-10, 2016

Camp Eder Retreat Center  (near Gettysburg, PA)

Friday, January 8 at 7 pm — Sunday, January 10 at 2 pm.
Hosted by River Crossing Playback Theatre
Facilitated by Deb Scott, Asheville, North Carolina

Exploring the Essence is a weekend to dig into the deeper notes of the stories all around us using Playback Theatre and related improvisational methods. The retreat will help us listen to stories more deeply and respond to them authentically with improvisational skill. It provides an intensive experience with Playback Theatre core skills and long-form stories focusing on both personal empowerment and social change.

Deb Scott - right - with Shawn at the 2014 Playback Theatre Leadership Course

Deb Scott – right – with classmate Sean Cai at the 2014 Playback Theatre Leadership Course

Deb Scott, M.A. is an accredited trainer and graduate of the Centre for Playback Theatre (New Paltz, NY). She began Playback with Asheville Playback Theatre in 1994 and was Artistic Director for 18 years. She studied acting with Stella Adler in New York City, working for 15 years as an actor and designer. Deb currently works as a coach with low income individuals who are re-writing their stories toward self-reliance. She also teaches open monthly Playback Theatre workshops and is most interested in how sharing stories leads to empowerment.

Is It for You?

Want to learn, grow, refresh, sharpen your improvisational artistry? The weekend welcomes people with all levels of experience with Playback Theatre, though some prior training is recommended. Hosted by members of River Crossing Playback Theatre, it is designed to equip you with broadly applicable tools to listen and respond to stories more deeply and sensitively.

What’ll we do?

  • Friday will open with Playback Theatre and interactive games to warm us up and build trust in our group
  • Saturday will take an intensive look at deepening our skills and our to work in a Playback Theatre troupe
  • Sunday will close with time to reflect, celebrate and integrate what we’ve learned for our personal growth and service to the community

Participants from the 2015 training-retreat, Playing with Privilege

Participants from the 2015 training-retreat, Playing with Privilege

How much?

$175 is the standard discount, $195 the full price (institutional rate). Includes dynamic leadership, cozy lodging and prepared meals in a newly rebuilt lodge in wooded South Central Pennsylvania. Sleeping accommodations are in two shared bunkrooms.

We strive to make this retreat affordable and appreciate your honest self-assessment of how much you can afford. If you would like to attend but cannot afford the discount rate, contact us to arrange a scholarship or work-share.

Because the weekend increases in intensity and requires increasing trust, we ask that you stay for the duration.

How to get there?

Camp Eder is located at 914 Mount Hope Road, Fairfield, PA 17320. (1.5 hours drive from Washington, DC and 2.5 hours from Philadelphia.) Members of River Crossing may be able to pick you up at bus stations in Gettysburg or York or train stations in Lancaster or Harrisburg; please request by Jan. 2nd.

How to register?

Reserve your spot online below or send a check payable to Jubilee Arts to 5075 Admire Road, Thomasville, PA 17364.  Please include: 1) Your name, 2) Your email and address, 3) Your lodging preference (male or female bunkroom), 4) Any dietary or other preferences/ restrictions. Space is limited so register ASAP!


Registration Options
Weekend Lodging
Your Name
Special dietary, other needs



PA Council on the Arts logo
This project is supported in part by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Questions?  Contact the registrar, Carol Stowell, stowellcarol@gmail.com or 717-292-0708.

We Belong Workshop: Intro to Community-Building Improvisation

Saturday, March 14, 2015
9 AM – 4 PM
York Friends (Quaker) Meetinghouse
135 W Philadelphia St, York, PA

Hosted by River Crossing Playback Theatre

Learn an improvisational theatre that plays back the deeper notes of stories and bridges divisions in our community.

River Crossing Playback Theatre at a community performance in Gettysburg 2011 - Dessylyn Arnold Photography

River Crossing Playback Theatre in Gettysburg 2011 – Dessylyn Arnold Photography

What does it mean to belong? Where in our community do we feel belonging—and where do we miss it? You will explore these questions with other community-minded participants using improvisational exercises that build skills for listening, communicating and transforming our stories. The workshop provides a basic training in Playback Theatre (further training would be required for performing) and a basis for a community performance-dialogue series in April, May and June. 

Register now via PayPal or send a check for $50 to Jubilee Arts, 320 E. Walnut St, Marietta, PA 17547. Scholarships available by contacting the registrar below. Register by Sunday, March 8 to guarantee your spot!


The workshop kicks off a second-Saturday dialogue-performance series this spring in partnership with the York YWCA, York Friends Meeting and Unitarian Universalist Congregation of York, We Belong, on:

Saturday, April 11 ~ York Central Market
Saturday, May 9 ~ Unitarian Universalist Church of York
Saturday, June 13 ~ York YWCA

Chris Fitz, a York native living in Marietta, PA, will lead the workshop’s progression of warm-ups, theatre games, interactive discussion and training in basic Playback Theatre techniques. Chris is the executive director of the Lancaster-based Center for Community Peacemaking and has practiced Playback Theatre and other interactive arts for more than ten years. He is a graduate of the international School of Playback Theatre based in New Paltz, New York.

PA Council on the Arts logo

This project is supported in part by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Questions?

Contact the registrar, colleen@jubileearts.net or at 717-747-1605.

We look forward to a fun and insight-filled workshop!

Playing with Privilege: A Playback Theatre Retreat for Community Change

January 2-4, 2015

Camp Eder (near Gettysburg, PA)

Friday, January 2 at 7 pm to Sunday, January 4 at 2 pm.
Hosted by River Crossing Playback Theatre

Who we are impacts our access to power and privilege…and it’s complicated. Our identities are made up of lots of aspects: age, race, gender, sex, class, and on and on. As Playbackers we can’t playback what we can’t see or understand in others or access in ourselves. Each identity is like a different lens and in this workshop we will be exploring these different lenses as tellers and performers, with the goal of making our playback work more inviting and affirming for all.

Workshops with River Crossing Playback Theatre

Who will be there?
River Crossing Playback Theatre members will host the weekend, designed to equip anyone having at least minimal Playback experience with broadly applicable tools to listen and play stories more deeply and sensitively.

Pamela Freeman and Sarah Halley, co-founders of Playback for Change in Philadelphia will provide facilitation and leadership
Pamela is a LCSW psychotherapist, trainer and activist. A gradute of the School of Playback Theatre, she is currently on the board of the Centre for Playback Theatre.
Sarah is a consultant, trainer and activist. She is a lead facilitator for the Whites Confronting Racism series at Training for Change and an artist-in-residence with the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts.

What’ll we do?

  • Friday will open with Playback Theatre and interactive games to warm us up and build trust in our group
  • Saturday will take an intensive look at the privilege in our own lives and our work in a Playback Theatre troupe
  • ​Sunday ​​will close with time to reflect, celebrate and integrate what we’ve learned toward a whole self and community

​How much?
$165 to $180. We strive to make this retreat affordable for everyone and appreciate your honest self-assessment of how much you can afford.
$165 is the standard discount. $180 the full price (institutional rate).

Includes food, cozy lodging and dynamic leadership in a newly rebuilt lodge in wooded Pennsylvania.
Sleeping accommodations are in two bunk rooms.
Because the weekend increases in intensity and requires increasing trust, we ask that you stay for the duration.

How to get there?
Camp Eder is located at 914 Mount Hope Road, Fairfield, PA 17320.
1.5 hours drive from Washington, DC and 2.5 hours from Philadelphia.
Members of River Crossing can pick you up at bus stations in Gettysburg or York or train stations in Lancaster or Harrisburg.

How to register?
Reserve your spot online below or send a check payable to Jubilee Arts to 320 East Walnut Street, Marietta, PA 17547.  Please include: 1) Your name, 2) Your email and address, 3) Your lodging preference (male or female bunk room), 4) Any dietary or other preferences/ restrictions. Space is limited so register asap!


Payment Options
Weekend Lodging
Your Name
Special dietary, other needs



Questions?  Contact the registrar, colleen@jubileearts.net or at 717-747-1605.

Passion for Music, Improvisation & Healing Community?

Jeremy Kiskaddin as the musician in the Healing York performance series (2008).

Jeremy Kiskaddin as the musician in the Healing York performance series (2008).

River Crossing Playback Theatre in Columbia, PA is seeking a playful multi-instrumental musician to join our community theatre ensemble. In Playback theatre performances, audience members share thoughts, feelings, memories and autobiographical accounts, then watch as a team of actors and musicians transform these experiences into improvised theatre pieces. Musician candidates must be skilled in improvisation, sensitive to tone and story, and should have a passion for community healing through performing arts. You can work with a different primary instruments (generally acoustic) but percussion experience and proficiency in a variety of instruments is particularly helpful. Being able to step into small acting roles a plus!

Contact shelly@rivercrossingplayback.org or 717-382-8292 to schedule an informal audition and orientation on an upcoming Wednesday evening rehearsal in Columbia, PA.

Where Have All the (Young) Men Gone?

The Challenge of Men doing Playback Theatre in North America:
A Workshop Case Study

By Chris Fitz, for the 2014 Centre for Playback Theatre Leadership Course. Quote with citation.

I didn’t know what exhausted me emotionally until that moment…I realized that the experience of being a soldier, with unlimited license for excess, excessive violence, excessive sex, was a blueprint for self-destruction. Because then I began to wake up to the idea that manhood, as passed on to me by my father, my scoutmaster, my gym instructor, my army sergeant, that vision of manhood was a blueprint for self-destruction and a lie, and that was a burden that I was no longer able to carry.

Utah Phillips, “The Violence Within” (1992)

Ned playing it back at Cafe Garth March 2014 

Preface

Where are the men?  This essay began with a practical and timely question.  The Playback Theatre company I founded in South Central Pennsylvania seven years ago is now finally thriving and growing with nine committed core members.  But apart from the musician and me, the rest were women.  Our troupe wasn’t alone in this dynamic.  Without a comprehensive survey, the majority of volunteer Playback Theatre troupes I know in North America seem to share this challenge.  Like Pete Seeger did after the US-Korean War in 1955, I find myself lamenting, “where have all the young men gone?”

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