Hello from Play Back North America

August 10, 2023

Where does your practice fit on the circle map above?

Hello, GPB friends! 


We invite you to come learn about a powerful form of improvisation that’s practiced in 70 countries in the world: Playback Theatre.  Playback Theatre involves all seven elements in the circle map above. 


Please check out PlaybackNorthAmerica.com.  Join the mailing list.  You can register for online workshops, classes and performances to experience the gifts of Playback Theatre, and also to learn about an off-the-stage practice called Embodied Empathy.  Explore how these forms of play could enrich your life and be useful to others in your network or profession.


How might Playback Theatre and/or Embodied Empathy benefit you? 

Improvisers:  Add deep meaning into the fun you have with improv.
Healers:
  Integrate creative, embodied deep listening into your work.
Activists:
Address social issues in engaging and creative ways.
Everyone:
Enrich relationships, work, and daily life with creativity + connection.

We hope to meet you online sometime soon!


Warmly,
Jamie, Anne, Ed, Elaine, Johnny, Cat, and Christopher
(PNA’s organizing team, 2023)

By Danielle Speciale June 9, 2026
Author: Sarah Filman, GPB Director of Programs
June 9, 2026
GPB and Linking Circles Academy Collaborate on Project TECI We love a good partnership. And we really love a partnership that puts play where it belongs, in a classroom. So when Linking Circles Academy came with a vision to transform how teachers in Nigeria show up for their diverse learners, we opened the door. Fewer than half of teachers in Nigeria do not receive any training on inclusive education, and there are a lot of learners with diverse learning needs and abilities. Founded by Elizabeth Adams, a brigadier, Linking Circles is an education-focused organization on a mission to improve learning outcomes in African schools through teacher development. They've already trained over 50 teachers through virtual and in-person workshops. Project TECI (The Equitable Classroom Initiative) is their boldest move yet, aimed at training and mentoring at least 1,000 primary and secondary school teachers to design and sustain inclusive, equitable, student-centred classrooms. It's ambitious. It's necessary. And it has GPB's name all over it. Inclusive classrooms need teachers who know how to meet a room full of different minds, different stories, and make every single one of them feel like they belong. And play is one of the most powerful tools for developing exactly that. That's why GPB is stepping in as a curriculum partner for Project TECI. Through our Educators Ensemble, we're bringing our play-based and experiential learning methodologies directly into the teacher training design. GPB will be providing play-based learning resources and frameworks to shape the TECI curriculum, offering advisory and technical input, and delivering a virtual training session for TECI facilitators on how to integrate play and performance-based approaches into their work. We'll also introduce GPB's work to the educators coming through the TECI programme — because once a teacher catches the play bug, there's no telling where it spreads. We're happy to be walking this road with Linking Circles Academy. We're bringing play into spaces where it has been absent for too long. And we can't wait to see the classrooms and the children that TECI helps transform. Let's play it forward!