In love with Playback Theatre since 2005. Completed Leadership in 2009. Accredited trainer since 2014. Cofounder and teacher of the Russian Central Playback Theatre School, a Centre-affiliated school. Artistic director, conductor and actor of the Playback studio “Bolshoi Theatrick”, teaching playback for adults and youth for more than 13 years. Conductor and actor of “Intriga” playback thetre. He is performing playback online with “Yonder” and “Intriga-online” companies.
He has taught at all levels of Playback with international experience, with special interests in ethno-cultural aspects, the cultural background influence, myths and fairy tales.
Igor is a Psychodrama therapist, Family therapist and a University lecturer.
Radhika is an applied theatre and expressive arts therapy practitioner from India. She is the co-founder of First Drop Theatre, a Bangalore based Applied Theatre company. An accredited trainer, Radhika is also the faculty for Playback Theatre at the Applied Theatre India Foundation and the co-editor of the International Playback Theatre Network (IPTN) journal.
She works with differently-abled individuals and children with special needs; using theatre, to help them express better, develop skills of awareness, communication and spontaneity.
She specifically uses Playback Theatre for self and social awareness, for opening up conversations and for enabling deep reflections in the area of healthcare, for mental health awareness, for addressing issues of diversity and inclusion, for community outreach, and for the holistic development of organizations.
Deborah Scott did a little of everything in the theatre in her years in NYC but discovered Playback only after moving to North Carolina in 1994. Combining social action and theatre was a wish come true. She was an original member of Asheville Playback Theatre in 1995 and served as a Co-Director of the company for 20+ years. Stories are at the heart of all her work, with families as a Life Coach, teaching front line family workers and their supervisors, and building relationships across cultural divides. She has a BA in
Theatre Arts, a MA in Humanistic Education, is an Accredited Trainer of PT and has served on the Affiliated Schools Committee for 7 years.
Heidi Winters is an activist, performer, PT accredited trainer and teacher. She co-founded Inside Out Playback Theatre in 2010 and practices Playback, Theatre of the Oppressed, and arts activism, using storytelling to engage and empower community-generated change. She is a 2019 Leadership graduate from the Centre and also holds a B.A. in Theatre from the University of Minnesota and an M.F.A. in Directing for Theatre from Pennsylvania State University. Heidi is an Associate Professor of Theater at Wabash College in Indiana, teaching acting, improvisation, and Theater for Social Change. She is performing Playback online with World Playback Theatre, Playback for People, and Thursday Zoomers.
Hoa My is a theatre actor, director and trainer based in both Vietnam and France. Her stage work is largely influenced by Jacques Lecoq. Since her graduation in Playback Theatre Leadership in 2024, she’s been leading and supervising the Vietnamese Playback Community (Làng Playback Việt) to promote the practice throughout Vietnam. In France, she focuses her Playback work in the special needs education field with teenagers, adults and seniors. She founded the SO-O association in her city to promote theatre as a means for well-being, where she teaches both children and adults.
In Playback, she is a conductor, actor and musician.
Josefine is the artistic leader of the playback theatre group gehdicht.ch since 2009 and a CPT graduate since 2014. She facilitates workshops and performances for diverse groups and conferences with several topics. “performed symptoms“ is one of her PT projects. She realized projects with refugees: touch base with someone (2015); Dear Others (2016-2018). As a registered art-therapist, RN, teacher, Josefine applies PT with a focus on health and salutogenesis. She is a passionate networker and connects talents wherever possible. http://www.gehdicht.ch http://www.krumm.ch http://www.die-tanten.ch http://www.nichten-und-neffen.ch
Originally from Germany, Norbert has founded, trained and directed a Playback group in El Salvador and is currently embarking on a new (parallel) long-term project in Mexico.
He uses Playback Theater as part of complex collaborations combining performance, ethnographic work and activism, following what he developed as enacted ethnography. Norbert uses PT both in public events and closed workshops working with rather than for communities. He is interested in employing Playback as a tool for social justice and community organization, exploring PT’s aesthetic (performance and deformance), its emerging storytelling, and its power in community-building. He has written on Playback theater, including a forthcoming book: The Migrant as Playwright: Playback Theater at the Border Wall and is starting a series of annual Playback Theater retreats in El Salvador, Mexico and the USA.
Olena Kalashnykova is a performance artist, trainer, and cultural leader known for her dynamic and deeply grounded work in Playback Theatre and applied arts. She is Vice President of NUKC “Prosperis” (Lithuania), co-founder of the Ukrainian Playback Theatre School and the Baltic Playback Theatre and Psychodrama School, and founder of Playback Theatre “Vakhtery”.
With over 12 years of continuous practice in Playback Theatre and more than 17 years in psychology and social sciences, Olena is an active practitioner working at scale — regularly performing, teaching, and leading long-term training programs across Europe. She has organized countless performances and conducted numerous trainings, and developed grant-funded cultural projects in support of refugees, displaced persons, and intercultural dialogue.
Her work combines artistic precision, strong facilitation, and the ability to build living, responsive ensembles. She is currently developing university-level educational programs and continues to expand Playback Theatre as a contemporary artistic and social practice.
Shi Yuting is a theatre practitioner from China and the founder and artistic director of Theatre LaStrada. She works as a conductor, performer, director, and trainer in Playback Theatre and conventional theatre. Since 2019, she has been promoting Playback Theatre across communities, schools, theatres, and organizations in China, focusing on performance, training, and community engagement. She became an Accredited Playback Theatre Trainer in 2025 and currently serves on the Board of the Center for Playback Theatre.
Swarna Sabrina Francis is a development professional with over 20 years of experience in program design, training, and capacity building. She is Co-Founder of Chindu NGO and Executive Director of Hyderabad Playback Theatre. An Accredited Playback Theatre Trainer and theatre artist, she has worked with leaders, activists, students, women survivors, and children across India, using art and theatre for engagement and transformation. She has facilitated workshops on leadership, gender, and theatre, and practices Listening Hour, Drama Therapy, Psychodrama, and Theatre of the Oppressed. She is committed to social change and a violence-free life for women.
Sze-Kan (Ckan) is a Theatre Designer, Psychodrama Psychotherapist, and Applied Art and Drama Facilitator based in London at the moment. She is the Artistic Director of True Heart Theatre from London and an overseas member of Encounter Playback Theatre from Hong Kong. She is passionate about integrating art, culture & therapy among communities and works as a facilitator and psychotherapist (individual & group) with different beings, including SEN students, disabilities, parents, etc.
Tzveta is an actress, theater director, producer, Accredited PT trainer and psychodramatist.
Founder and director of Playback Theater “Here and Now”- first professional company in Bulgaria. She’s a conductor, actor and musician. As a pioneer in developing Bulgarian PT society, she started the annual Bulgarian Playback Theater Gatherings in 2014. She and Playback Theatre “Here and Now” participate in many international events. Tzveta and her team organized the first online European Playback Theatre Gathering in 2020 and online conference with Jonathan Fox in 2021. Director of EPTG from 2017-2022, hosted in Sofia. She has done hundreds of PT events and numerous workshops and trainings all over Bulgaria, abroad and online.
Yves Postic was a member of the first French playback company with Heather Robb in 1988 in Le Havre, Normandy. He graduated from the Center for Playback Theater in 2004. He founded a Playback company in Paris in 2000, le Théâtre du Bouche à Oreille (Word to mouth).
He is currently a playback practitioner and trainer. He offers supervision to french speaking Playback companies. He also works as a singer, composer, and pianist. He also has got a lot to share on singing and music in Playback. A psychodramatist, he started this year to lead an Action methods training course (Playback, sociometry, psychodrama, sociodrama, theatre forum, Nonviolent communication ) at IFREAP, France.
Jonathan is the co-founder of Playback Theatre and the artistic and executive director of the original Playback Theatre company from its inception in 1975. He is the author of Acts of Service: Spontaneity, Commitment, Tradition in the Nonscripted Theatre and Beyond Theatre: a playback theatre memoir; the editor of The Essential Moreno: Writings on Spontaneity, Psychodrama and Group Method; and co-editor of Gathering Voices: Essays on Playback Theatre. In 2008 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Kassel in Germany for artistic and scholarly achievement in theater.
