Story Teller Actors

Audience

Most of our books and other media are about Playback Theatre. Playback Theatre is an original form of improvisational theatre in which audience or group members tell stories from their lives and watch them enacted on the spot. Whether in theatres, workshops, educational or clinical settings, Playback Theatre draws people closer as they see their common humanity.

Playback Theatre was founded in 1975 in the Mid-Hudson Valley in New York by Jonathan Fox with Jo Salas and the original Playback Theatre company. Since then, Playback Theatre has reached hundreds of settings and locations. A support organization, the International Playback Theatre Network, provides connection and information for Playback practitioners on five continents. The Centre for Playback Theatre and affiliated training programs provide comprehensive training.

Since Tusitala was founded in 1994, our books have been translated into German, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Hebrew, Russian, Korean, and Nepali. We are proud that our books accompany Playback Theatre practitioners and trainers all around the world.

Where does the name come from? The great Scottish poet and novelist Robert Louis Stevenson was called “Tusitala” by the people of Samoa when he lived there in the 1880s and 90s. It means “teller of tales.”