Melbourne Playback Theatre Company

“..we would be pleased to recommend The Melbourne Playback Theatre Company to providing other similar performances to young people.”

Patrice Rickard
Buloke Youth Health Expo Committee

Our Philosophy Melbourne Playback Statement of Purposes

To promote performing art and community art using the Playback form of theatre, which is a spontaneous, improvised and interactive form of theatrical storytelling.
To use the Playback form to model spontaneity, communication and respect between individuals, groups and communities, including enacting the stories of groups and communities using movement, music and dance.
To use the Playback form to encourage marginalised individuals and groups find their “voice” and to encourage other members of the community to hear that “voice”.
To work widely in the community as performers and workshop leaders, in order to make the Playback form accessible to a range of people and communities. This is also to be facilitated through applying for grants and donations, and by implementing a sliding scale of fees according to the means of the various groups to whom the company performs.
To continue to develop the Playback form through interaction with other improvisational forms and theatrical models.
To promote the Playback form to the general public by producing no less than six performances each year which are open to the general public.
To promote the Playback form by publishing and distributing a quarterly newsletter with information about company performances, training sessions and the Playback form generally.
To promote the Playback form in the fields of education and training, whilst maintaining connections with traditional Playback communities, including by publishing and distributing material for the purposes of promotion and instruction to achieve this end.
To develop and promote the Playback form in the Australian and international community through engagement with the international Playback community, including through membership of Interplay and attendances by association members at training conferences.
To promote the Playback form by taking a leadership role within the Australian and Asia-Pacific Playback communities, including through the exchange of information and resources.
To assist communities throughout Australia with establishing their own Playback companies, including travelling to various places in Australia upon request.
To maintain a public fund to which gifts of money or property for the association's principle purposes are to be made, to which any money received because of such gift is to be credited, and that does not receive any other money or property.
To ensure that the association pursues all of the above purposes by recruiting and training new members of the association as required from time to time.