PT in the Gulf FEBRUARY 2006 REPORT

On February 12th the Company gave it’s first public performance at the ASHE Cultural Arts Center and it was a great success, reports Paul McIsaac, of Playback (NYC), teacher of the 4-day workshop. (Photo to the right is of the NOLA playback training group at the ASHE Cultural Training Center in February.)

Despite being a very cold Sunday morning the theater was filled. Carol Bebelle, the director of the ASHE Center, welcomed Playback to the community and it was clear that this new and as yet un-named Company would have a very supportive base at ASHE.

For this first performance the company divided its self into two groups so that everyone that took the workshop would be able to perform. Anne-Liese Fox conducted the first group and from the beginning the audience needed very little prompting to bring in their experience of this post-Katrina world. The dominant themes the actors played back were frustration, anger, loss and then the joy one man felt seeing his grandson for the first time...just minutes before, at this show.

When Ann-Liese asked for a longer story a young woman came up who had been volunteering for months under very difficult circumstances. Through her tears, she told her story of weeks of volunteering in NOLA, of the dozens and dozens of Katrina stories she had heard, as she helped people fill out all the forms they needed to get some governmental assistance, she even helped gut and restore a home for a family she had never met . The Company handled this painful and redemptive story creatively and with sensitivity.

As the second Playback group, conducted by Maritza Mercado. Maritza also conducted a story of a volunteer. He talked about how hard it was day after day confronting such loss and even death. And yet he was also very thankful. He said that... “by helping I have found myself and gained so much”.  The show ended with the whole company on stage, excited and joyous.                                                                                                      

No one left after the show, but stayed and shared stories and talked about how much the event meant to the Company as well as the audience.