Contact
markjtully@yahoo.com
Telephone: (508) 685*8437

I am a teacher, arts activist and community organizer committed to:

– Helping people explore personal and group narrative through Playback Theatre;

– Training people how to guide their peers through this medium; 

– Using various art and theater forms to help community organizers and leaders define issues, brainstorm strategies, and take creative action.

Playback Theatre

My primary focus is to train youth and community groups in the skills of Playback Theatre, through workshops that teach explorative forms or through longer skills-training sessions.

Playback Theatre is, simply, taking personal stories from an audience and playing those stories back to the teller, through carefully crafted rituals and improvisational forms that reveal the story further.

Playback is increasingly being used to address bullying in schools, to help youth and others explore the details of and alternatives to destructive decision-making, and with refugee and immigrant populations worldwide to express the realities of cultural displacement and bias.

As in my organizing career, my focus remains on youth, neighborhoods, justice and community service. I work with youth non-violence and anti-racism projects, the LGBTQ community, and neighborhood organizing groups.

I’ve trained in Playback methods and applications for 10 years, and was part of the Playback Rhode Island troupe for 5 years. Specific training I’ve completed includes:

– Troupe performance leadership;
– Advanced methods for multi-day training;
– Theatrical and musical strategies for different ages;
– Using PT successfully and safely  working with experiences of trauma.
– Best PT practices in addressing issues of racism and cultural displacement. 

Arts Organizing

Sometimes an issue needs to be built to be seen, or a strategy seen to be examined. Visual and theatrical forms can be a powerful organizing tool, bringing a unique freedom to express realities and ideas that aren’t available in a discussion.

And sometimes what you have to say or demand needs to be directed over the noise of press and spokespeople in order to be heard. Maybe you want to show what you’re looking forward to; or stand and march with an ancestor high above you.

My facilitation draws from a variety of creative organizing traditions. Major influences include:

– Paolo Freire’s object-plays;
– Augusto Boal’s Forum Theater;
– Bread and Puppet’s silent figure-plays;
– Art and Revolution’s work turning
“anti-x” activism into “pro-y”;
– The fair-trade movement’s strategic
street theater.

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