Playback Theater Workshops and training

Playback Theater workshops and training are dynamic, interactive sessions where participants share personal stories that are then performed by actors in real time. This method allows teams to explore themes like inclusion, leadership, and organizational challenges emotionally engagingly. By seeing their stories acted out, participants gain unique insights and experience interactive feedback, promoting empathy, open dialogue, and creative problem-solving.

What is Playback Theater?

Playback is an applied form of participatory and improvisational theatre. Each performance is based on the experiences, thoughts, and stories told by the participating audience.

Typically a playback theater workshop lasts for 1,5 hours, during which facilitator Jaana Taskinen guides participants to share their experiences on chosen topics. After this, the actors play the story back to the audience with sensitivity and empathy.

Through their performance, the actors can make relations and interactions between people and events visible. Therefore, allowing the participating audience an opportunity to see their situations from the outside and create the ability to arrive at insights and possible solutions.

With a background in leadership, storytelling, and diversity training, Kamilla uses Playback Theater as a powerful tool for building empathy, enhancing communication, and fostering collaboration.

Whether you’re an individual seeking personal growth or a team looking to strengthen bonds, Kamilla’s Playback Theater workshops and training sessions provide an engaging, memorable experience.

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So why Playback Theater WORKSHOPS & TRAINING?

Organizations often face resistance to change, especially during major transitions, such as adopting new systems or navigating company-wide transformations.

Playback Theater workshops and training help break through this resistance by offering interactive feedback that resonates deeply with participants. Unlike traditional feedback methods, these workshops highlight the unrecognized voices, particularly those from underrepresented groups, fostering a more inclusive dialogue.

In the current hybrid workplace, Playback Theater also strengthens employee connection, bridging the gap between disconnection and engagement through storytelling and live reenactments.

My workshop and training with Playback theatre group Hyvä Kätilö helps you care for the greatest resource of your organization, human potential.

How can Playback Theater Workshops & TRAINING Help you?

Playback Theater workshops and training provide an innovative approach to overcoming organizational challenges. Through Interactive Feedback, employees openly share personal stories, encouraging honest dialogue and immediate insights.

These workshops and trainings are time-efficient, gathering diverse perspectives quickly, and creating an emotional connection among participants by dramatizing stories of change and inclusion.

They also make invisible issues visible, revealing the roots of resistance. Led by expert facilitator Jaana Taskinen, each workshop is designed for maximum engagement and insight.

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Our impact: What You’ll Get in a Playback Theater Workshop

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Revealing Hidden Perspectives

Brought previously unseen issues to light, fostering transparency.
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Service Design Improvement

Provided insights that enhanced project strategies and service offerings. For instance, understanding why international students preferred student union events over career services helped universities tailor their offerings more effectively.

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Interactive Feedback

Gathered real-time feedback, encouraging open dialogue and revealing critical insights.
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Engagement Across Backgrounds

The workshops effectively engaged employees from diverse backgrounds and projects, aligning employees with organizational goals and values.

Client’s feedback

I can truly recommend this kind of workshop and training, specially with remote working. We organized workshop on topics of international recruitment with quite diverse group of project professionals and they saw impact of their work through storytelling, got new ideas and felt strong involvement. My warmest recommendations!

Jaana (os. Kupiainen) Meller

Development Specialist in International Recruitment, KEHA-keskus

The main idea behind Playback Theater and storytelling is to give voice to the experiences of the participants, to make them visible. For our research project, the strength of storytelling is that it allows us to better understand the emotional experience of the participants.

Päivi Kuusi

University Lecturer in Translation Studies, University of Helsinki

For the final event of a three-year project with the Pensioners’ Union, we selected a Playback Theater workshop to connect NGO professionals with their cause of creating meaningful encounters. The sincerity, teamwork, and professionalism of the actors greatly enhanced the event’s execution and format, adding an engaging and memorable dimension. This approach also helped in planning future projects more effectively, ensuring they meet their objectives while addressing both successes and challenges.

Zhanna Tuulas

Project Assistant, Eläkeliitto – Finnish Pensioners’ Federation

Feedback from the Event PARTICIPANTS

The feedback from the workshops was positive. Participants praised the Playback Theater workshops for their engaging and impactful format. They highlighted the following aspects:

  • Relatability: The workshops promoted a strong sense of relatability among colleagues, enhancing empathy and mutual understanding.
  • Innovative Approach: The dynamic and interactive nature of the sessions was a refreshing change from traditional workshop formats. Employees appreciated the opportunity to express their views creatively.
  • Effective Feedback Mechanism: The workshops provided a valuable platform for gathering honest and actionable feedback, helping organizations make informed decisions.
  • Wellbeing Boost: The sessions contributed positively to employee wellbeing by fostering a supportive and empathetic environment.

Overall, participants appreciated the opportunity to share their stories in a safe and supportive environment. Many highlighted the emotional impact of seeing their experiences portrayed on stage, noting how it helped them process and understand their feelings better. The workshops were praised for their inclusivity and the skillful facilitation that made everyone feel heard and valued.

What the Participants Say

Warm recommendation! Playback theatre lets you be touched by the kind of experience which just words can’t convey.

Miia Leppänen

Leading Specialist, Sitralab

My head is bursting with thoughts and feelings. The process is wonderful and it was fantastic to watch the actors use different methods to arrange our stories into small plays and scenes.
Anonymous Participant

Professional, TE-Toimisto

I felt heard, I felt understood, and my story made sense.

Anonymous Workshop Participant

Playback Theater workshops and training offered a powerful and innovative tool for fostering inclusive leadership and enhancing employee engagement. By breaking away from standard workshop formats, these sessions promoted empathy, understanding, and a sense of community.

Conducted in both Finnish and English, they demonstrated how storytelling and theater could drive meaningful organizational change, improve well-being, and enhance overall leadership effectiveness. Through this initiative, companies and organizations were able to gain critical insights, align their teams, and create more inclusive and effective workplaces.

For collaboration inquiries, email us at hello@kamillsultanova.fi

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