Improvising Real Life: Personal Story in Playback Theatre, written by one of its creators, describes the origins, practice and philosophy of Playback Theatre. Improvising Real Life is illustrated with dozens of real-life stories told in performances and workshops. Includes 15 photos and a glossary of playback terms.
Jo Salas is a New Zealand-born writer living in the Mid-Hudson Valley of New York. She is the co-founder, with her husband Jonathan Fox, of Playback Theatre (www.playbacktheatre.org), an original form of interactive theatre in which personal stories are told by audience members and enacted on the spot.
Her first book, Improvising Real Life: Personal Story in Playback Theatre, grew out of the desire to support the increasing numbers of people who wanted to learn and use Playback Theatre. Accessible, thoughtful, and full of stories, the book describes Playback Theatre's origins and practices. It's been reprinted several times since 1993, and translations have been published in Germany, Japan, Brazil, Uruguay, Taiwan, Russia, and Israel.
Working with children in residential treatment inspired a later book, Do My Story, Sing My Song: Music Therapy and Playback Theatre with Troubled Children. Written for general readers as well as professionals, it tells the stories of a number of remarkable young people and what happened when they became involved in the arts.
With Leslie Gauna, Jo Salas co-edited Half of My Heart/La Mitad de Mi Corazón, a bilingual, photo-illustrated collection of stories told by immigrants about their lives. Half of My Heart grew out of an ongoing project in which Hudson River Playback Theatre (www.hudsonriverplayback.org) provides opportunities for immigrants to find a public voice.
Jo continues to write frequently about Playback Theatre. She is a contributor to Telling Stories to Change the World, Current Approaches in Drama Therapy, and other volumes.
