The After-Play Interactive Forum

Ten years ago I began to delve into the possibility of a different kind of post-play discussion format that blended the street theatre techniques of Augusto Boal, the drama strategies of Dorothy Heathcote and the challenge of values clarification. I wanted to create an experience immediately following the play that would ask the audience to think deeply and express their ideas about the conflicts presented. I wanted the audience to feel valued as more than just spectators; to know that their responses mattered. And finally, I wanted to allow a sense of community to form in the theatre space, as people heard the diverse opinions of others beyond their immediate circle of friends.

The result of this work is a new after-play interactive talkback model. I hope you will use the structure in your theatres, adjusting the design to fit your particular needs and the needs of the play. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

Think of it as an opportunity. Take advantage of the emotional and intellectual high that immediately follows a play. The theatre can be more than sitting in a darkened space, watching a performance. It can be a place where we explore what it means to be human, searching for ways to live better lives.

Let me know how it works out. I’m learning, too.    

Laurie Brooks

Put a Little Boal in Your Talkback

A Playwright Offers a New Interactive Forum that Goes Beyond the Banality
of the Post-Performance Discussion

by Laurie Brooks
reprinted from an article that appeared in American Theatre, Dec 2005

The last lines are spoken, the theater is dark. Applause. When the lights rise, instead of a curtain call, the actors appear—still in character—to engage in a post-performance dialogue with the audience. What seems to be completely impovised is, in fact, a carefully structured, after-play event.

We in the audience of the Cotiere Theatre in Kansas City, MO, following a performance of my tough young adult play, The Wrestling Season, (American Theatre, Nov 2000), in which eight young people and a referee struggle with the destructive power of rumors and their own identies, a play in which much of the action is wrestling. Matt and Luke, two champion wrestlers, have been accused of being gay, but their identies, like the ending of the play, are left unresolved. more...

A Forum Designed for
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

by Jeff Church, Artistic Director, The Coterie Theatre,
Kansas City, MO.

At the Coterie in 2004, we decided that our production of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde would benefit from an after-play forum.  We'd worked with Laurie on forums for her plays in the past with great success, so we approached her about designing a forum for a play she hadn't written. 

We told her our goal: We wanted our adult and young adult audience to be able to reflect more deeply on the material, which was somewhat dense.  Laurie asked my Education Director and I a number of questions and devised the structure. Then we staged it, with a bit of tweaking back and forth along the way. With Laurie as a consultant, we were able to accomplish a forum that had the same kind of impact we'd experienced with her own plays.

more in-depth information on forum design...

The After-Play Interactive Forum: A New Model for Talkbacks

by Laurie Brooks

How long did it take you to learn your lines?
What made you decide to be an actor?
How much do you get paid?

Do you recognize these clichéd queries from typical theatre talkback sessions? Sure, you do. We’ve all heard them. Audiences enjoy contact with actors (after all, they are the stars), and it can be instructive for them to know why a play was chosen for the theatre’s season or how the director approached the production, but if a theatre has presented thought-provoking or even ground-breaking work, are we underestimating our audiences’ need to explore something other than the surface life of the production? Is this common talkback model a hidden agenda to further promote and aggrandize our own work? Why is this tired model the only form of post-performance engagement offered in theatres around the country? more...