Welcome, everybody. It's great to have you here.
Thank you for being here. We appreciate your presence.
My name is Federico,
I'm going to be your tech support for the day.
Before we get started,
I just want to make sure that we're all on
the same page as far as Zoom tech.
You saw some of the slides we are presenting that we
suggest that you stay in
gallery view throughout this performance.
That means you'll be able to see multiple boxes
as opposed to just one big one and multiple small ones.
You will find that option at the top right corner
of your Zoom screen where it says View.
Just make sure you're on gallery view.
Now for the next part, this is a bit more tricky.
Hide non-video participants is an important settings.
If you could all go ahead and
turn off your cameras for me,
stop your video, please.
If you could all stop your video for now, please.
Rena and Florence, if you can stop
your video for me or I'll bring you back.
Just give me a second.
Rena, I'll bring you back.
All you're seeing is me at this moment you're just
seeing a big square with me, speaking on it.
You're good. You don't need to do
anything else as far as settings.
If you see a bunch of other boxes with names on them,
including your name, this is what you need to do.
[NOISE] You need to go to your box,
and on the top right corner,
you'll see three blue dots.
You're going to click on those three blue dots,
and a menu is going to pop down.
You're going to click on "Hide non-video participants."
That should allow you to only see me at this moment.
If you're on a tablet or phone, you need to tap.
Where it says more, the three blue dots,
you're going to click on
those three blue dots and then meeting settings.
Then another menu is going to come down
that says, show non-video participants.
If that is checkmark with a little green checkmark,
you're going to uncheck it, and then you should be okay.
If at any point you find difficulties,
please feel free to reach out to me.
You'll find me on your participant lists all the way
to the top as Federico Tech,
you can send me a private message and I'll do my best
to support you and help you in whatever you encountered.
Thank you again for being here and without further ado.
Enjoy the performance. [MUSIC]
Hello everyone. I'm Hannah,
and I'm zooming to you today from the Mid-Hudson Valley,
New York, a little bit outside New York City.
The land of the Lenape and Scopus people.
I've been starting to hear planes overhead in the sky.
It's such a strange sound after
a year of not hearing planes overhead.
I have mixed feelings about it.
On the one hand, it means, wow,
maybe I can travel again
and work overseas and see my friends
and family overseas or across
the country and get out of this little box.
On the other hand, it means that
this pause where human activity slowed down,
and the sky and the sea and the land suddenly
became less clogged with
pollution and the animals could roam freer.
This means now that we're going to
clog up the airways again with all these planes,
and I feel less motivated to travel.
[MUSIC] [NOISE]
Is that a bird?
What?
It's so soon.
I can't get out of here.
I can't get out of this box.
[FOREIGN] Ricardo. My name is Ricardo and I am
Zooming at you from Los Feliz in Los Angeles,
which is the land of the Chumash and the Takic.
My pronouns are the He series and the She series,
if culturally appropriate to you.
In LA, we are returning to something of a
normal and we're able
to go out wherever they go to restaurants,
we're able to see friends.
I find myself as others are returning to normal,
feeling like I'm returning to anything but normal.
The past year has been all
about survival thanks to the pandemic,
thanks to being a queer man of color,
and thanks to everything that's going on in the world.
As we are merging into a more free sense of being,
all of the emotions that I have been ignoring for
the last year while focusing on survival are
coming up in great spurts and floods.
I find myself randomly bawling and randomly laughing.
I do not know which end is up.
[MUSIC]
[BACKGROUND]
[FOREIGN] My name is Cherae and I'm
zooming in from South Africa.
Today my 70-year-old mother, got vaccinated.
It's a pretty big deal for me because
she's all the way on her own in a different city.
She has had no response
from the government systems that had been put in place
pertaining registering for a vaccine I've been hearing
back and then being directed to a vaccination center.
Today she took a chance and walked
into a center and got vaccinated.
I'm relieved. [MUSIC]
Put it here.
Safety.
These arms are for hugging
Hello everyone. My name is Will C.,
I currently live right next to Boston, Massachusetts.
Since the Biden administration has taken over office,
I've noticed that the push for political correctness,
by trying to actually make things
better isn't as important of a topic anymore.
It concerns me because I'm in
a marginalized group that often gets pushed to the sides.
I've been trying to work and figure out new ways to do
these artistic projects that bring
these issues to the light can try to engage us again.
But what I'm noticing is that
white supremacy conditioning runs really deep,
it's like running into a huge, vast monster.
I'm both paralyzed by looking at this monster,
but also in awe of how vast and large is done.
I'm trying to figure out how to balance
that sense of awe and get over my paralysis.
[MUSIC]
I'm going to do something.
Hello, hello.
Wow. Get back.
Hello. Hello
Help me
Hello, hello.
Wait, it's in me. It's in me.
Hello. [NOISE]
Hi everyone. My name is Joyce and I'm
also in Los Angeles on Tonga Territory,
and I've been studying Tai Chi since like the mid 1990s.
I've had several teachers,
none of them would teach me
the actual fighting application of the movements.
But during the pandemic, I actually,
even though I was predominantly working from home,
found myself in a lot of
contentious situations where I needed
to engage the art of war basically.
Strangely enough or maybe not strangely,
I happen to find
a Tai Chi teacher walking distance from my house who
is really into teaching
the applications and wants to
teach me the fighting applications,
so I feel like during this time,
I leveled up in my personal warrior-ship.
[MUSIC]
In our music today we have Steve Nash,
from New Castle, England.
Hi.
Hi, Steve. Thank you.
We are Pangea Playback Theater,
and we create a space for
compassionate listening and personal storytelling.
We use theater as a tool for reflection and dialogue.
We're improv artists, we come with no script,
so your life stories will
become the material for our play today,
which means that you all are
an essential part of this event and experience.
We want to meet you.
We're going to ask you all now to turn on
your cameras so we
can see you and you can see each other.
It's a lot of wonderful people in this room.
Here we all are.
Now, we have a couple of pages,
at least on my computer,
so feel free to turn your page and
see all of these wonderful faces from around the world.
If you see someone in
this Zoom Room who you'd like to say hello to,
[NOISE] feel free to unmute yourself for a moment and
say hi to someone
that you might want to say hi to.[OVERLAPPING].
There will be more time for chatting.
That's what this whole thing is about,
is making connections and
being with friends and making new friends.
We can all mute ourselves now.
We're going to be [BACKGROUND]
muting and unmuting and turning
our cameras on and off and in this way we
create a stage here on Zoom.
This last year, Playback has been
very nimble speaking of Tai Chi
and moved into the virtual world.
It's exploded around the world,
so we are adapting and
we're doing Playback this way for now,
and maybe we'll go back to the stage
in-person with our bodies at some point as well.
I think some people already are.
As you know, this is
a public show we've been performing together
this team all year for organizations and commission gigs,
almost every other week.
We've been pretty busy,
but we wanted to come and say hi to you all and check in.
This show is a collaboration with
Virginia Tech University and
Wabash College, I think it is,
because they're creating an
online Playback Theater archive
so that future students can learn good practice.
So thank you for playing it forward with us and
agreeing to be part of this experience.
If you are brand new to Playback Theater,
could you wave at the camera.
Let's just see. Is anybody brand new? Hi, Danny.
Welcome. Yes, I see Jonathan Fox, brand new, Luisa.
Okay, wonderful.
If you've been doing Playback Theater or have
seen it or do it for some time,
can you now wave at the camera too,
if you know this ritual, you know this thing.
Yeah, okay. If you are
a part of a Playback Theater company,
I'm going to invite you to put
the name of your company in the chat,
because for those friends here who are new to Playback,
they're going to soon see how vast
it is and it's in
over 70 countries and it's being done all over the globe.
If you here now
also practice Playback and have a company,
let's see what all these companies are.
We can all just take
a moment to glance up
the chat and read all these wonderful names.
True Story and Collectiva,
Teatro Playback, they're coming in fast.
The Healers. The Healers are here.
Big Apple, Living Arts,
The Crazy Thing Playback is a name of a company.
Helsinki Playback is in the house.
The Thunders is here,
and on and on and on.
What's so exciting about Playback,
especially right now doing this virtually,
is how international these gatherings are.
If you are zooming in today, tonight, morning,
whatever it is for you from Asia,
if you're here today from Asia,
could you keep your camera on and
the rest of us are going to turn our cameras off.
If you are zooming in from an Asian country,
let's see who you are and welcome you.
Okay, wonderful, welcome.
If you are zooming in from Africa,
a country in Africa,
the continent of Africa,
please keep your camera
on and let's see who's here from Africa.
Yes, we have friends from Africa.
Awesome. Hello, and welcome,
and we're so happy you're here.
If you're zooming in from Europe,
a country in Europe,
Could you please keep your cameras
on and everyone else will turn their cameras off.
Now we want the Europeans to come on out,
and we want to greet you a warm welcome.
Many different countries.
You just unmute yourself. What countries?
Portugal.
Ireland.
Germany.
Ireland, Germany.
Poland.
England.
Poland.
Holland.
England.
Israel.
I want to be in Europe, I mean UK.
Oh. [LAUGHTER]
Oh, sorry.
If you are Zooming in from
South America or Central America,
could you turn your cameras on?
The rest of us will turn our cameras off.
South America, Central America.
[FOREIGN] Hello and welcome.
Andrea is driving.
I hope you're not driving.
I hope someone else is driving. Okay, great.
If you are Zooming in from the well,
New Zealand, Australia, I
don't think I'm just going to check.
If you're Zooming in from the Mid-Hudson Valley,
New York, come on out.
This very spot, Mid-Hudson Valley, hello and welcome.
Great. Now stay here if you are Zooming in from New York,
the Greater New York,
come on out, turn on your camera.
New York folks, I guess I should be here too.
If you are Zooming in from the East Coast,
Eastern Standard Time, come on out.
East Coast, United States.
Okay, here we are, hello.
If you're Zooming in from Central Mountain Time,
United States, join us. Okay, Heidi.
[LAUGHTER] If you're Zooming in from the West Coast,
United States, Pacific Time,
please come on out and say hi.
Great to have you.
Canada's here, please come and join us.
The Middle East, I also want to name the Middle East.
If you're Zooming in from the Middle East,
let's give you a moment as well.
Then we'll turn our cameras off. Hi, Ben.
Wonderful. Let's all come on back.
That's who's here.
This is the community that
we're going to be hearing stories from today.
The theme as you all know is,
how are you in this moment,
what's happening for you?
As you can see, there are people from all over
the world and we're all in different stages.
We've all been through something pretty traumatic.
All of us, all around the world.
There've been some silver linings.
There've been some wonderful moments,
I hope for us this year.
There's also been a lot of really difficult moments.
Some of us are still in that dark tunnel.
Others of us are emerging out of that tunnel.
We're here just to check in
and find out what your stories
are from the recent past,
from this moment, what are you looking forward to?
Just before we turn the floor over to you,
I want everyone to raise their right hand.
You're not going to swear anything in,
or take a bow, or anything.
But this is going to become a spectrum.
When you think of COVID-19,
if you feel like you're emerging out of it
at the tail end or even it's behind you,
you're going to be up here.
If you're still in that dark tunnel with this pandemic,
not vaccinated, or wearing masks,
or locked in, then you're going to be down here.
Everyone's going to put their arm on
this spectrum so we can just see where everyone is at.
Some of us might be down here,
some of us might be up there.
We're just going to notice,
just take a notice for the rest of
the community what temperature
they're at right now with COVID-19.
You can put your hands down.
I just want to find out now from you how you're doing.
How is your mental health?
How is your physical health?
What's good? What's hard?
This is Friday, we're at the end of a week.
You can just share how you are today,
how your week has been.
For those of you who knew to play back,
the way it works is you just volunteer to speak.
You volunteer your story.
You raise your hand,
or you unmute yourself.
You can even use the Zoom
raising hand feature if you want.
Now I remove that fourth wall,
although there was never one there to begin with.
We find out how you are in the audience.
What's happening for you today?
It's so nice to see old friends and new friends.
Very cool. Okay, Warren has his hand up.
Great. Warren, if you could
just unmute yourself and start talking,
you'll zip over here to the front.
I am feeling incredibly grateful right now.
Pause for a moment, Warren.
I'm going to ask the audience
now to turn off their cameras.
We're going to dim the house lights as it were and
create a stage for
our first teller so we can see and hear him better.
Just remind everybody, Warren,
where you're Zooming in from.
I'm zooming in from Johannesburg, South Africa.
Johannesburg, okay.
You were saying you feel grateful?
Yeah, right now.
Okay.
Because I've been experiencing
incredible cabin fever from
all the lockdown and some of the isolation.
Just really grateful to see
people that I know on the screen,
to hear your voice.
[LAUGHTER]
To be in the same room as very dear friend.
[OVERLAPPING]
You're feeling grateful in this very moment at
this performance to feel this connection with friends.
However, outside the Zoom room,
there's still a lot of locked in sheltering in place,
cabin fever experience for you.
Right.
What's the status in
Johannesburg right now in terms of the pandemic?
We're in a third wave and it's rising very sharply.
It's breaking the previous two patterns.
Third wave of COVID?
COVID, yeah.
The infections are up?
Up. The line is literally straight.
It's not even curving.
I live in an area that is as highly infected.
I'm very aware of friends who've been infected.
I'm aware of people struggling.
I live in a paradox because I got
my first vaccination this week as a healthcare worker.
I'm one of maybe five percent of
the country that have been vaccinated at the moment.
Okay, five percent.
This is the backdrop.
Today, we heard the news of
the FDA issued instruction
to J&J to get rid of 60 million vaccinations.
We are one of the sites of production for J&J.
South Africa. South Africa has been waiting
for J&J vaccines which were ordered.
This has a huge impact on our country.
There's this paradox of getting really,
incredibly sad, and angry, and frustrated.
Very aware that we are nowhere
near at the end of the tunnel.
You personally.
I'm privileged and I'm
privileged in this space right now too.
Things are still pretty tough there in South Africa.
But you have a little bit of protection
yourself being vaccinated.
Then also this is a nice experience
for you being in a room with so many people.
Yeah, the electricity is working. [OVERLAPPING]
The electricity is working.
Because we've been having power cuts. [LAUGHTER]
I know, I've been hearing.
We'll see this as a Zoom Sculpture.
Let's watch. [MUSIC]
[LAUGHTER]
It's almost like I can [LAUGHTER] touch you.
There we are. Look at that face. Yes.
Hello.
Hello, COVID. Hello.
Stay in this box.
Why won't people stay in the box?
Stay safe so we can get these numbers down.
[NOISE] It's not [NOISE] much in here.
There's not enough of these.
There's not enough.
Why can't there be?
There's enough, but why can't we give equal access?
I don't understand.
Why? [OVERLAPPING]
It's so good to see you.
How hard can it be? [OVERLAPPING].
Hello.
[MUSIC] So good to see you.
Hello.
How hard can it be?
[MUSIC] I guess I just have to keep.
[MUSIC]
Hello?
I'm lucky I have this one still.
[MUSIC] Five percent. I still have this.
Thank you, performers.
Thank you so much.
Warren, you can come back on for
just a moment, checking with you.
So happy you're here.
Thank you for coming.
Everyone, come on back.
House lights go up,
and we want to hear from the next teller.
What's happening for you in your neck of the woods,
in your community, in your home,
in your mind, body?
Someone raised their hand,
but I don't know who it is.
Autumn.
Autumn Ruskey.
They're connecting to audio currently.
[LAUGHTER]
Autumn, would you like to say something?
I think their audio is still connecting.
We're going to wait. We're going to
go back to Autumn in a moment.
Who else might have something they'd like to say?
Am I connected?
Are you here, Autumn?
Yes.
Wonderful. What's your feeling?
What's your moment?
Right here, like I say over here.
[LAUGHTER] Hi, I'm actually in my classroom right now.
That was my drama teacher.
Hi. Wait. Great. Autumn, do you have a red shirt on?
Yes, I do.
Let's all turn our cameras off so we
can see Autumn a little bit better.
We're going to hear from a student next.
Autumn, nice to have you here.
What's your story right now?
Right now, I'm currently at my school.
I just finished drama class,
and it's the end of our day.
I know we were talking
about being like what do you feel at this moment.
At this moment, I think I feel more overwhelmed
just because I'm going to my junior year next year.
Junior year of high school?
Yes. I have a lot of decisions to make.
I've been dancing for nine years,
and I think I'm going to take a break
this year to move on to theater and drama.
I still have to make that decision.
I have decisions whether I want to do
volleyball because I really like to do volleyball.
So between dance and volleyball and schoolwork,
it's just so overwhelming.
I love theater. Me and my class,
we did a Playback group.
You've done Playback also?
Yes, I have.
With this pandemic happening,
have you been able to do
your dance classes offline and in-person,
[OVERLAPPING] in theater classes?
Yes. [OVERLAPPING]
That's good.
We have them. We're really
grateful to be able to do that.
It just feels a lot of overwhelming.
There's a lot of positives that I
see without my dance community,
my volleyball community and my drama community.
It brought us closer together
just because we get to see what we can do.
I never knew some of the things that we could possibly
do with this new setup and everything.
Wow. Where are you zooming in from?
Where are you? What's your location?
I'm in Maryland.
Maryland. All right, Autumn.
Thank you so much.
It's great to hear from a high school student and
what high school students are thinking right now.
It sounds like there's some good things,
but you're also overwhelmed
with decisions that you're having to make.
With this, as a Zoom Sculpture, let's watch.
[MUSIC] Autumn, you can mute yourself.
[NOISE]
So much to juggle.
[NOISE] I don't have the hang of it yet.
[NOISE]
Do I go this way?
Do I go that way?
Do I go this way?
Do I go that way? This way.
So many things I could do.
There's so many things I do.
When I get out of this box, watch out.
When I get out of this box, I can dance,
I can sing, I could play a role.
[OVERLAPPING]
Teenager, I see you. [MUSIC]
Thank you, performers. Thank you.
Thank you to Autumn for
their story and let's get everyone back on.
Let's see the audience again.
So that's how it works.
We hear you, we listen to you,
we throw up a reflection.
Nice to be overwhelmed with
those kinds of questions and decisions.
We want to hear now from someone
else and do a few more short forms.
Don't be shy. We don't bite, we can't bite.
In-person Playback sometimes we bite,
but now we can't bite.
I see Danny with a hand, Hannah.
Okay. Danny, come on up.
You can just start talking and then and then
we'll see you, Danny. Hi, Danny.
Hi, guys.
Everyone, you know the ritual by now.
You can turn your camera
off if you're not the teller that
way we give our good attention to the teller.
We don't get distracted.
We stay here, present,
but Danny, tell us,
what are you thinking about?
First thing, thank you for inviting on this.
I would like to share one of the experience I had
yesterday since we are
talking about the COVID and pandemic.
I think it has a bigger impact on younger kids as well,
though we talk about adults most of the time.
But kids like five years old,
10 years old, though they don't talk about it,
but I think it has impacted them a lot.
Yes.
Yesterday, I was with my five years old in
the playground and another
eight-year-old was playing with him.
They were playing in the soil,
they were digging very hard,
and then I just ask one of the fellow,
"What are you doing exactly?"
He said, "I'm making graveyard."
So I was shocked. Yeah.
I'm just going to repeat that.
Making a graveyard is what this little kid said.
Yeah. When I asked my son, "What are you doing?"
Because he was doing exactly the same thing.
Then he said, "No, I'm just planting
a tree because I want to see more flowers."
It's like though you see
the same thing happening with kids,
their perspectives are different.
They have many things in
their mind which they are not able to talk about it.
But when they show some gestures or do the act,
I think we the adults we need to understand it
in a better way and talk with them about it.
What are they feeling internally and how
they can express themselves.
Because they do watch news all the time.
Yeah, they're absorbing.
They've absorbed this crisis.
Yeah. I'm amazed how
they think about it and at the same time,
I'm confused about what we as adult can do with them.
Yeah. We'll see this as a Three-Part Story.
Cherae, Ricardo, Joyce.
What I'm hearing is that you were in the playground
with your child and your child's name is?
Caguas.
Caguas?
Yeah.
He was playing with another child digging dirt and they
had very different interpretations
of what they were doing.
Right.
Graveyard versus planting flowers.
Right.
Yeah. How are the kids
after these 15 months and how can we help them?
Let's watch.
[MUSIC].
Deep down in the soil.
Deep, deep down in the soil they dig and dig and dig,
and what might we find
[MUSIC] in the young mind?
What might we find
in the young mind?
Hi, it's me. It's dirt.
Hi? I know I just look like a hole in the ground to you,
but can we talk?
Listen. We need to
talk about what's going on with these kids.
Just come over her here.
You see this one?
He's putting flowers in me. It's great.
I love it, I love it, I love it.
This one, it's not such a rosy story.
I might mean one thing to you,
but please think about what I mean to them.
I often find myself
wondering what's the best thing to do to raise my child.
How how can I give them the necessary support,
the nutrients, the love, the care?
Things had been so difficult.
How do we talk about difficult things?
How do we teach them to
honor those who have
gone and hold their difficult emotions?
How do we love them and love
ourselves when the world goes through a trauma?
[MUSIC]
Thank you, performers.
Thank you, Danny, for your very important story.
You can come back on for a moment, Danny,
something like that. Unmute yourself.
Yeah, I'm sorry. It was intense,
but thank you for sharing. Thank you.
Thank you. All right.
If you are a parent of a human,
bring yourselves on camera.
If you are a parent of a human being,
come on camera. All right.
If you are a parent of a furry being,
an animal parent, come on camera.
These are the furry parents.
Well, you may not be furry,
but you have a furry friend.
If you are a grandparent, turn on your video,
come on stage and
keep your camera on if you're a grandparent,
so these are the grandparents.
I think Erica there has her two grandkids with her
right now. Can we see them?
No. Okay. Everybody come on back.
Before we move along in our experience together,
I want you to get your arm out one more time.
This is about hugs.
How ready are you for a hug?
If you're raring to go ready to
just grab and the first
person you see on the street, you're here.
Hug is a metaphor for getting close again with
people and getting in people's space and physical space.
Where are you all?
Lisa is way up here.
Kathy is up here.
There's some people who aren't quite ready for
that big hug from the world.
What's going to happen next is we're going to put you in
a little breakout room for a short time so that
you can meet someone here and also just
have a moment to add
your voice to the conversation and think
about what your story is on this theme.
It's only going to be for seven minutes.
It's not very long.
So introduce yourself and just
make sure that each person has,
Federico, let's do eight minutes so it's even,
each person has about four minutes to start
to think about what your story is, how you're doing.
What's happening now?
What's happening next?
What do you hope for?
What are the challenges?
We'll see you back in eight minutes.
If you really don't want to go
into a room to talk to someone,
that's okay, just don't accept the invitation.
But in Playback,
we build a community of neighbors and not strangers,
so we encourage you to go meet somebody.
Chao. Lisa, you have your hand up.
Lisa.
We'll come back to you after.
There they go.
[NOISE] They're going, they're leaving,
they're in the corridor, they're
down the hallway. Welcome back.
Hello.
Hello. David, where are you Zooming in from?
I'm zooming in from Burbank, California.
Nice.
David is my singing teacher.
[LAUGHTER].
Singing teacher?
A lot of Playback Theatre in San Francisco.
Yeah.
Then Crawford I was like [OVERLAPPING]
Oh, that's so cool. Did you hear Joyce?
She had a little singing moment.
Yes, I did. [LAUGHTER]
Okay.
Awesome.
Hi Paul, how are you Paul?
I'm good. Unfortunately, I have to run.
Someone just came to the door.
[LAUGHTER]
Okay.
I'll be back in a minute.
Okay.
Paul McIsaac you are a legend.
I know. Paul McIsaac in the house.
He was one of the first people when I
started learning Playback everyone
said that I needed to meet.
Erica too, hi.
I just got put some shoes on.
Oh, who's putting shoes on?
You don't need shoes for this.
[LAUGHTER] All right. Welcome back everybody.
Sorry.
Okay. Hi Rosie, hi everybody, Debbie.
Hi Hannah.
Marcin hi, okay Dorothy.
Lisa, you had your hand up before?
I just wanted to know how to
get to a group, but you know what?
Federico took care of it.
[LAUGHTER] So I don't need to be in charge. [LAUGHTER]
Wonderful okay, great.
Raise your hand if you were able to have
a little chat just now with someone else?
I'm hoping I see everyone's hand.
That's a trick question but hopefully, okay great.
What we'd like you to do now is think about a title or
a working title to
describe what you just were sharing with your partner.
It may not be a full-blown story,
but if you were to label or title
what you just were talking about yourself,
could you please put that in the chat.
Titles for your stories.
Everyone can mute themselves, that would be helpful.
We're just going to start to read them off, so,
riding the wave, it's worse than I can explain.
Living in the liminal space,
moving into the unknown with two cars and a cat.
Flying to love close quarters.
The most basic need fulfilled.
Discovering the gift of these times.
Sorry and beauty of the ocean.
Esperando/ waiting.
COVID from west to east, unexpected academic achievement.
Be twixt and between living in the opposite land.
Unlock self, emerging into emptiness.
This is a poem that we're creating
together as Joyce and I are reading.
[LAUGHTER] Real poetry we have here.
We will probably read all of them,
so why don't you both read a few
more and then we'll start to hear.
Okay.
From the audience.
Yeah. Creo que te conozco Facebook quizas.
Limitation is a state of mind.
Our talk, Playback and COVID.
Isolation, my connection, and finally,
the waves of life.
All right. You got to get Amazon addiction in there.
Well, what a collection of stories.
We want to hear some of these now and
invite someone to possibly elaborate on that,
on their title, on that little description.
Who would like to be the next teller?
Again, you can raise your hand like this,
you can raise the Zoom hand,
you can just start to speak.
All right Elsa. People can turn their cameras off
and we will give Elsa the floor and
hear a little bit more about her story in this moment.
Thank you.
How does it begin?
It begins with the fact that when COVID gets lighter,
other news stories come to the foreground,
and this is what I'm living right now here in Portugal.
One news story in particular that is really
just gripping me. Yes.
Tell us more.
We just found out this week that,
the mayor of Lisbon,
every time there's a protest outside an embassy here,
because of something that's going on in
the country that that embassy represents.
That, he's been secretly informing the governments of the
countries' that these people are
protesting about who has been at
the protests and their identities.
Ratting people out?
Yes.
Naming names?
Yeah, and this has been going on for a while,
but now that COVID is lifted a little bit here,
these stories are coming up.
This one in particular has been discovered,
we don't even know how to react to this right now.
I now live in Lisbon, this is the mayor of Lisbon,
someone who I actually voted for.
So a left-wing. Yeah.
What's his name? For those of us.
His name is Fernando Medina.
Say it again.
Yes. Fernando Medina.
You can just use Medina.
Medina?
Yes.
All right. On one hand,
in Portugal where you are,
COVID is lifting some?
A little bit even though Lisbon now is not advancing in
the end of the lock-down
because things are getting worse again here.
Yes. But still we're breathing a little bit now.
Yes, which is good.
You're still in lock-down?
We have certain restrictions but not nearly,
it has nothing to do with what we were living before.
Now we can walk freely,
we can travel within the country freely.
All right.
Yes.
Now, there's other turmoil.
There are other concerns.
Yes.
Political concerns, what's your feeling
about this news about Medina?
I'm very angry.
I'm not really being
able to find out yet, this is very soon.
The last story about, this came today.
I'm still trying to figure
out how people are going to organize against this.
Because now of course the right-wing parties are
all using this against
the left and I know that there are
so many good people that are
still here trying to do the good work.
But I cannot even begin to imagine how this man
thought that this could be done.
He's been ratting protesters to Israel, to the states,
to Venezuela, to Russia, China.
It's just unbelievable to know that this is happening.
I've participated in some
of these protests, you know what I'm saying?
Let me pause you Elsa,
choose one of these actors to play you.
Will C.
Will C will play Elsa.
So you said you've been protesting.
What's something that you
or others are protesting about in Portugal?
Well, very recently the
situation in Palestine and Israel.
Okay.
That's one of the things.
But the last one that I've been
at actually last week was,
against the police intervention against
this lesbian couple who were just in a garden.
Portugal is one of the most
advanced countries in terms of
legislation for LGBT rights and still
someone called the police because this lesbian couple
were just kissing in
the garden and there were children there.
This person made a complaint to
the police and nine policemen
appeared to check out
the situation and intimidate this couple.
We protested against this last week
in the same place, yes.
So this was the last one I was in.
Okay.
Yes.
Oh, okay. So I can hear in your voice,
you're anxious, you're concerned, you're upset.
Yes, I still don't know how to direct this anger,
so this is very present in my whole body today.
They're in my breathing,
my heart, my body temperature.
Yeah. Okay.
When you asked about that body and
mental health today, this was here.
Present?
Yeah.
Okay, so there's some shady activity
happening at the top of leadership,
naming names of protesters,
emerging from one crisis into the next. Let's watch.
Thank you.
[MUSIC].
I can't breath.
It's like the system that's taking my breath away.
The more I struggle,
the more it smothers me.
The only thing I could think of to get my breath
back is to remove
this layer and vote
for a different way.
I can see that there could be a different way.
There's got to be a different way.
There's got to be [MUSIC] different way.
[OVERLAPPING] There's got to be a different way.
There's got to be a different way
Who can bring that way to us?
We've been living this way with no [OVERLAPPING].
Medina for mayor.
Medina for mayor [MUSIC].
Heard of him. I've heard of him. [OVERLAPPING]
He's our man.
He promised to bring us the best things. He promised.
I see you. I see you all.
He sees me.
I see you. I see all of you.
He sees all of us.
Everyone, he sees all of us.
We have to vote for this guy.
We have to get behind him,
we have to support him
because he's going to bring us our freedom.
We want to be free if we want to breath again.
[OVERLAPPING]
Elsa, Elsa I think this doesn't feel quite right.
[MUSIC] It looks right to me.
Is real.
Hello, police.
I need to report criminal activity.
Yes, there's two women,
they're being intimate and there's children.
There's children there.
I think this is wrong.
Okay. It's just going to be okay.
We don't need all of these police for this situation.
[MUSIC] I'm standing away.
I will protest. I will protest to make sure.
There's some information.
They don't know.
I've been watching them [LAUGHTER].
They weren't supposed to know,
but now that people
are removing their mask a little bit more,
we can see what you've been up to.
We can see that you are not for us.
We see you now.
Do you know what you've done?
You betrayed us.
It's more than that. You've set us back so far.
Now, the right side is claiming that
their rights [MUSIC] because
of the things that you did in secret at night.
[MUSIC] You can't even face me, can you?
I voted for this joke.
I just wanted to believe that,
I wasn't stupid to have some hope.
[MUSIC] If I were a different person,
I would tell you.
If I could just express the way that I feel,
I would take my hands and
[MUSIC]
I can't breath.
Thank you performers.
Let's get our teller back on.
Elsa. Hope you liked that Elsa.
Yes. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you
Thank you.
Sounds like a challenging situation.
Everybody come on back.
Keep us posted, Elsa.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
We have time for a couple more stories.
Getting warmed up here.
Who might have the next story?
Again, we create a dialogue through stories,
so one story responds to the next story.
All stories are legitimate,
are valuable, are meaningful.
Sometimes we wait a moment.
Various hands. Various hands.
Okay, Lisa, go for it.
This is your first Playback experience.
Yeah, wow.
Well, my story is based upon
our little breakout experience
with another Lisa in Germany.
Okay.
We spoke about, are we ready to hug?
Yes.
Today, I went hiking.
I did the rock scramble at Mohonk,
which is a vertical rock climbing experience.
I do it regularly with a friend and in this case,
we were coming down.
As we were descending,
two couples were ascending and the two women were
having a massive anxiety attack
and did not want to proceed.
My friend and I said,
''No problem, we'll take you down."
One of us took the front,
one took the back and we
assured these women who didn't know us,
from Adam, that they would be safe and
we'll escort them down, they'll be fine.
When we got down,
they threw their arms around us,
as if COVID did not exist,
and it was magnificent.
It felt good, it felt good. All right.
I was crying as I was telling Lisa the story.
Okay. Recent experience of positive human connection,
helping some people with anxiety,
helping them back down this cliff.
Yes.
Ends with a big hug.
An unexpected, unsolicited.
Yummy.
Unsafe, yummy hug [LAUGHTER].
Without hesitation.
Correct.
All right. We will see this as a Three-Part Story.
We'll see Joyce, Ricardo. Let's watch.
[MUSIC]
Can someone show me how to use this thing?
[LAUGHTER] I've been here
for a while and I knew
I should have googled this or something.
It's getting dark and these rocks are a challenge
and I don't know what to do or where to go.
Which way? Can you help me?
On the hiking trail.
I haven't seen a whole lot of people,
but it's nice to see people coming
back and walking freely,
supporting each other,
enjoying the greenery, enjoying the day.
I've been having a sense of
expansion and watching these humans also expand.
I know that they've needed me.
They've needed me and they've needed a sense of touch.
They've needed a sense of touch.
Not just with me, but with each other.
Come on. Come on.
Yeah. It's this way,
this way, this way.
Just follow me. Here we go.
Here we go, and here we go,
and here we go,
and here we are.
We made it back and there you are and there I am.
What's happening? What's happening?
Do it. Do it.
What are you doing?
Don't hold back.
Is this happening? [OVERLAPPING] Is this
[NOISE]
[MUSIC]
Thank you, performers. Thank you, Lisa.
Hug story, helping story,
human story. Thank you.
[NOISE] We can always hug ourselves,
pretend it's someone else inside our arms.
We have time for one or two more.
I'm going to pass
the conducting apple over to my colleague Joyce.
Thank you. I'm going to conduct the next story.
What's the next story? David.
I saw Kabelo and Paul also.
You're going to have to choose.
Why don't we do Kabelo
and then we'll have time for one more.
Yeah, we'll go back.
We'll try and get everybody.
All right.
No, sorry. I don't have a story. Sorry about that.
I was stretching my hand. No story from me.
[LAUGHTER] So sorry about that.
You sure? Are you sure?
[LAUGHTER]
I'm very sure.
Let's all go with David.
[LAUGHTER]
Okay, hello. [LAUGHTER]
Hi. We'll ask everyone else to stop video.
[NOISE] David, how does your story begin?
It begins being an actor in a television show.
Okay. Can you say what television show it is?
I cannot.
Okay. [LAUGHTER] You're an actor in a television show.
But I can't tell you that it's
a scene that involves FBI agents.
Okay. You're an actor in a show that involves FBI agents?
Yeah. I'm an FBI agent.
[LAUGHTER] Then? What happens?
What happens is that,
and this was yesterday,
actually, when you're working
in these TV shows now there's all these COVID protocols.
Until the moment when you're actually filming,
you're either wearing a mask or a shield or both.
Then even when you rehearse a scene,
you're wearing those things.
In this particular scene,
it involves a bunch of
extras and it was this whole ensemble scene where
you're put really close to each
other just right on each other, super close.
When we're rehearsing with the masks and the shields,
I was like, "Okay, this is fine.
This is nice being close to people."
But then when we were about to actually roll,
they say, "Okay, shields off, masks off."
You hand your stuff and then all of a sudden
you're right next to everyone, no shield,
no mask, and breathing each other's air,
and I felt super uncomfortable.
It was a heightened sense of discomfort.
Not claustrophobia, but just something even deeper.
I just have this frenetic body
feeling somehow inside. [OVERLAPPING]
A frenetic body feeling.
How long did this frenetic body feeling go on?
I think until they actually said, "Action".
The moments we were actually filming,
it was fine, but up until the moment.
It dissipated as soon as we were done also,
but it was until the moment of actually shooting,
it was just vibrating somehow.
You were able to do your job, and then?
Yeah, exactly.
Are you going to be going back to these sets?
No, I quit. No, I'm
just kidding, [LAUGHTER] I'm just kidding.
[LAUGHTER] Yes, there will be another day of shooting.
That was just one. Otherwise, it's been normal,
but all of a sudden boom, that
one situation was really intense that way.
With a lot of extras.
How are you feeling about going back?
Oh, I feel fine.
I feel fine.
I think I'm totally okay to go back for more.
Okay, thank you.
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
No, I think that's it.
Okay, so Will C. has a Beat with Will
C. and Hannah and the rest of us can stop our video.
Let's watch.
[MUSIC]
There is no business like show business.
But I need you to keep your business to yourself.
Because the way these rules have
changed are for us to help.
We need to have a mask,
we need to have a shield,
we need to have something.
It may not feel real,
but it feels like we're still alive.
I don't want anyone on this production to lose
their life because we are being careless.
I am the FBI and I am someone you can trust.
But that moment we have to take off that shield
and we take off that mask and we
reveal the things that we have been going through
these last series of months.
COVID-19 is not something that I want.
It's not something that I want to give to you,
it's not something that I want
any of us to have to go through.
I am the FBI and
I am trying to turn that F into I am fine,
but I'm not feeling fine.
Honestly, I'm losing my mind until they say, "Action."
Now, that I know, because I am an actor and
I am a professional and I know that the show must go on.
But that moment before action,
it feels so long, it's scary,
and I'm trying to figure out why is everyone so near me,
and extra, extra, extra, extra everywhere.
Extra, extra, read all about it.
More people are dying.
Even though we have the vaccine
and I don't understand what any of this means,
do any of us really?
Is it silly for us to speak so freely?
For this show that's going to be seen on TV?
[MUSIC] I know I'm very close to fine,
but I'm still going to put on
my mask in those other times.
Thank you, actors.
David, could you start your video? How was that for you?
Wow, that was amazing. Thank you.
Thank you. Well, I'll look out for you on the TV.
[LAUGHTER] Let's invite everybody
to start your video again.
I will pass the conducting Apple back to Hannah.
Thank you. I'm so curious, David.
You're going to have to send us the link or something.
I'll go ahead and tell you, they're so harsh on
confidentially. Here you go.
Let's take one last teller for this particular show.
As you saw earlier,
there's Playback happening all over the world.
There are many more performances and
places hopefully for you
to tell your story and make connections.
But we here at Pangea headquarters,
we want to welcome one last teller.
Now, I know Paul has had
his hand up and we're going to hear from Paul.
But I also want to invite
someone from outside the States.
Can I go to Linda and then could you do
yours as a short form, Paul?
Sure.
Andrea, you have your hand up too?
Andrea? We might have to meet again.
Linda, please stay on.
Everyone else can turn their cameras off.
Paul, we will come back to you, I promise.
Just want to get outside the United States a little
bit since we're in such an international community here.
Okay Linda, tell us.
I'm calling in from Berlin.
The story starts last Monday at our last rehearsal,
my group, we're all cancer affected.
Some of us patients,
some of them on ongoing chemotherapy.
Everyone's been touched by cancer.
Some still dealing with it.
Yeah, and they will have to
deal with it for the rest of their lives,
so they have an ongoing chemo treatment.
We were all glad that we all got our second vaccination.
Since a week, Germany is slowly opening up.
At the rehearsal, one
of my colleagues told a story that she just
had a checkup with her physician and they
checked her body for the antibodies against COVID,
and there was zero.
Zero antibodies?
Zero antibodies.
Which isn't good.
Which is very bad because she's not protected at all.
We all got shocked.
We went like, Oh gosh,
it's not over yet,
it's not over yet.
We all in the process now of checking each other,
checking with the physicians if we're protected at all.
First of all, it's very frustrating because
it was just about the point where we're going like,
wow, now it's going to happen.
We can meet at rehearsals again.
We can see each other again.
Everything is on the stop now and there
is no end to it somehow.
We don't know how it's going to end
or what kind of solution there's going to be?
You're still in danger?
Yes.
You're not out of danger,
out of the woods, even though you've been vaccinated?
For me personally, I don't know yet.
I would know only in a week from now.
You being your group, collectively?
In my group, yes.
I know that at least two or
three are going to be affected in this way.
I'm still trying to figure out how to
support them and what to do.
How are you feeling?
Frustrated [OVERLAPPING] and also it's a bit fearful,
it's threatening,
because we're looking so much
forward to the solution now.
The solution of finally getting protection and
antibodies as a vulnerable population,
being able to meet and touch and hang out again together.
Yes.
Okay. All right.
This virus is a new one and much we don't know.
Thank you, Linda. We're going to do this as
a Tableau. Let's watch.
[MUSIC]
Linda is in
a Playback Theatre group of
cancer survivors and they recently got back together.
[MUSIC]
Some are past the sickness,
some are still dealing with the sickness.
They are a vulnerable population,
but soon they will be vaccinated.
[MUSIC]
The vaccine arrives,
shots in arms and let's build our protection.
[MUSIC]
A group member reports that,
in fact at a doctor appointment,
she was told that she has
no antibodies, no protection post-vaccination.
[MUSIC]
This armor isn't working.
Danger still lurks.
What are we to do?
[MUSIC]
Do I stay in?
Do I go out?
When are we going to be past this virus?
[MUSIC]
Thank you performers and let's get our teller back on
for a moment. Thank you, Linda.
Sorry. Ending with such a dramatic story. Sorry.
No. That's what we're here for. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
I hope the story gets better.
It's also to call awareness to
others that are affected to check it.
Just terrible.
It's not much talked about.
All right everyone. Let's come on
back and we're going to hear from
our final teller for today, Paul McIsaac.
He has been around Playback a long time.
We haven't seen much of him.
Great to see him today and Paul,
in the short version,
what did you have to tell?
I've been Zooming and Zooming and Zooming
talking to groups about the filibuster.
Now for those of you outside
of the state, you might not know.
We have a very weird thing in
the Senate where one person can stop legislation.
Even though we got rid of Trump and the Democrats control
the presidency and the Senate and the House,
one person can stop the legislation.
It's not only every single important legislation
you can imagine about race, about economics,
but it's about the fundamental democracy in this country
is threatened by what's going on in the Republican Party.
They're trying to run the country as a minority party.
I've been on frantically
talking with groups and we've been
organizing and I've become incredibly
frustrated because so far,
the only thing that the groups that
oppose this filibuster had been doing is
making phone calls and sending
emails to their senators, which is great.
But I and a few other people
have been saying we've got to do more,
we've got to get on the street,
we've got to demonstrate,
we've got to go out in
big numbers and nobody wanted to do it.
I'm so thrilled to say that in the last couple of days,
and guess who it is,
the Poor People's Campaign.
The people who represent
the poorest people in this country have said,
we're going to Washington,
and we're going in numbers and we're going
to say save our democracy.
So I guess I'm going from total frustration to yes.
A little bit of hope and optimism and movement.
There are people going to
Washington to address this problem.
We'll do this as a final Zoom Sculpture for Paul,
and we're going to include all of that.
There's real frustration because
no one's really dealing with this.
You've been trying to get people motivated and finally,
there is some activity.
Let's see if there's any change.
All right. Let's watch. Vamos a ver.
[MUSIC] Get out there.
Come on.
Let's gather everyone together
because we are stronger when we are together.
We are stronger when we are more.
Come on people. Come on.
Come on. Come on. Come on.
You're going to go, we're going to go.
Come on. Let us go.
Yeah. We're going to go.
Okay, not enough.
We're going to find something to do.
They just talk and talk and talk,
but we're done talking.
We care about what you say.
You have to say something that is valuable.
[MUSIC] We're going to hold you accountable.
We're going to change this system.
We're going to go out there.
We will-
Thank you performers.
Thank you so much.
Another story about protest and change.
Paul, thank you to help us finish our journey here
together on a note of optimism
and hopefully some good positive change.
Everybody, just keep your cameras off for
another moment because we're going to finish
up here with one more little ditty.
We're going to invite you back in just a moment.
Once there was.
Once there was a woman who was part of
a group of caring individuals who all were
touched by cancer and received
the shocking surprise that
maybe they weren't as well protected as they thought.
[MUSIC]
Oh no.
Might be nothing. Once there was a woman
who saw the truth of her vote.
Who realized the truth of her mayor.
[MUSIC] I
see
you now.
Watching me? Well, I'm watching you.
Straight again.
Behind the curtain, that what goes on?
Once there was an unexpected hug
that felt so good.
It broke the recipient down to tears.
[MUSIC] No hesitation.
That's right. Bring it in.
Human touch.
We're not broken.
Once there was a young person with who
is moving on to their next year of high school.
They had so many choices about what they
were going to do that they felt totally overwhelmed.
[MUSIC] Maybe I'll have
that and I'll have a little bit of that,
[OVERLAPPING] but I also have to sleep and I have to eat.
I'm a good actress and I can dance.
Once there was a group of people from
around the world who gathered in
a Zoom room on a Friday afternoon in
June to meet each
other and listen to each other and tell stories,
build empathy and connection,
and who hope for a new and better day.
Thank you so much for coming. Come on back.
We want to say goodbye.
Thank you so much.
Never feels like enough time,
but we know that you took time
out of your life to be here with us today.
Andrea, if you had a story,
we want to hear it next time.
For everybody, hopefully you can find a squirrel or
a child or a spouse or a tree to tell your story to.
Stay safe and take
care until we see you again. Thank you so much.
I'm going to put on some music so you
can dance out of the Zoom room.
See you again. Thank you so much.