MANHATTAN — Randy Mulder, drama therapist and adjunct faculty member at Kansas State University, will bring his New York-based performance company, Village Playback Theatre, to the Little Apple and Salina for Community Cultural Harmony Week activities, Sept. 14-18.
Throughout the week, Village Playback Theatre will host performances and workshops on the university’s Manhattan and Salina campuses.
Village Playback Theatre is an improvisation-based applied theatre company that utilizes drama, music, movement and the invitation for personal storytelling to build community. The ensemble is committed to eliciting and enacting the stories of individuals and groups who are often underserved and socially underrepresented. During a performance or training workshop, Playback Theatre invites audience members or participants to share a personal experience. A dramatic piece is then created, interweaving the concrete details that were expressed as well as the nuances that the artists have observed in the story.
The following Village Playback Theatre performances are open to the public:
• The company will present an interactive performance where performers and audience members will engage in dialogue with one another over experiences of cultural harmony and cultural conflict at 7-9 p.m. Monday, Sept. 14, in Forum Hall at the K-State Student Union. Admission is free to both students and the public.
• The company will present a workshop/performance to an audience of both students and the general public about cultural awareness — attitudes toward difference, bias/prejudice and privilege — from 1:30-3:45 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15, at the Purple Masque Theatre in West Stadium.
• The company will give a workshop where audience members engage with the company members as well as each other from 7:30-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16, at the First Presbyterian Church, 801 Leavenworth St., Manhattan. Attendance reservations are requested by emailing Mulder at rmulder@k-state.edu.
Support for Village Playback Theatre’s activities at the university comes from grants and other funding from the College of Arts & Sciences Diversity Committee, Community Cultural Harmony Week, Department of Professional Education and Outreach at K-State Salina and the university’s theatre program, which is part of the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance in the College of Arts & Sciences.
For more information about the Village Playback Theatre company visit villageplaybacktheatre.org.