This performance is part of the online Playback North America Conference & Performance Festival: Playback in Community: Reaching Towards the Futures We Want. It will include over 20 conference sessions and 8 performances, hosted and performed by PNA members.
- The full Performance Festival runs Friday-Sunday, March 11-13, 2022.
- See below to register for this show or multiple festival performances.
DESCRIPTION
Have you ever tried to talk with someone you care about whose views are clearly different from yours – say, about COVID vaccinations, or whom to vote for, or abortion, or which news sources to trust?
This show aims to reveal valuable insights into why we do or don’t try to reach out, what helps such conversations go well or badly, and what can give us the courage and resilience to try, and keep trying. Audience members are invited to share their experiences. All perspectives are welcome. The actors reflect back what was shared, with respect, empathy and creativity. Come to share or simply watch and listen.
If you are interested, right after the performance you can join a breakout room to learn about resources for dialogue across differences. Hundreds of groups are working to ease political polarization, both in the US and around the world.
- Reaching Across Ideological Differences: Saturday, March 12, 2022, 5:00-7:00 p.m.
- Tickets for this show are $15-30 (Sliding Scale) – Get your ticket HERE!
Performers: Christopher Ellinger (he/his, conductor), Mary Elizabeth Wheeler (she/hers, musician), Charles Smith Metellus (he/his, actor), Teresa Dinaburg Dias (she/hers, actor), Amber Espar (she/hers, actor), Anne Ellinger (she/hers, actor), Tonia Pinheiro (she/hers, tech host)
FESTIVAL PERFORMANCES
- Get a Performance Festival Pass to see all 8 Shows for $35-80 (Sliding Scale) – $60 recommended
- Get a Conference Pass to see all 8 Shows + over 20 workshops for $25-150 (Sliding Scale) – $75 recommended (PNA Members ONLY)
- Get a Single Pass for each individual show you want to see for $15-30 (Sliding Scale)
True Story Theater has been performing and teaching Playback Theatre for 20 years in the greater Boston area and beyond, offering 60-80 improvisational performances and workshops a year until the pandemic moved our work online. As a nonprofit theater company, True Story’s work has served homeless vets, cancer survivors, seniors, teens, the LGBTQIA+ community, human rights commissions, activists, philanthropists, universities, hospitals, and religious, community and business leaders. We have twice received prestigious “Our Town” grants by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Our mission is to promote social healing through theatre. We perform and teach an embodied theatre of empathy, respect and creativity. Volunteers from the audience are helped to share personal stories from their lives. On the spot, actors then reflect the heart of what they heard using music, movement, dialogue and song. In response to these simple interactions, people laugh, cry, experience fresh insights and bonding. Our events create a respectful atmosphere where every voice can be heard and any story told — however ordinary or extraordinary, difficult or joyful. True Story Theater offers audiences new perspectives, deeper connections, and a renewed appreciation for our common humanity.
