Since its founding in 2008, Playback Memphis has been bringing its improvisational Memphis Matters to Memphis communities with a mission to “co-create and catalyze community well-being, social healing, and flourishing culture,” as their website states. This Saturday, June 10th, Playback Memphis will present a special Juneteenth Memphis Matters with all-Black ensemble for a BIPOC-only audience. Before the performance, the Flyer spoke with ensemble member and University of Memphis dance professor Wayne Smith to learn more about it.
Memphis Flyer: What should audiences expect from the Juneteenth Memphis Matters performance?
Wayne Smith: So, Playback is an improvisational, audience-interactive theater company. The way we interact with audiences is that people in our audiences are prompted to share something and we have a team of performers, or actors as we often call them, and they will enact what the person in the audience shared in a creative way. It’s theatrical and incorporates use of language, movements, and music. It’s multidisciplinary. For this show, we’re looking at this as a commemorative celebration, being in honor of Juneteenth, so we’re looking at people of color coming together to share their experience, place of their identity, who they are.
What will be your role in this performance?
Remember when I mentioned that audiences are prompted to share something? Well, there’s a conductor that does that. So for this BIPOC show, I’m conducting. I’ll ask the questions. [For this show,] we’re very much aware of the importance of honoring and thinking about the emancipation of people who were enslaved and freedom and liberty and what does that really mean? These will be part of some of the questions that I will be prompting from the audience, and people can share from a very personal perspective.
I’ll start with surface-level things, then I’ll get gradually more personal, so people can begin to be comfortable with opening up and digging into deeper things. And it’s amazing how quickly people begin to open up. And then you know, we get the feedback afterwards, and people say that it really helps them, first of all, to share something that’s very difficult, but then to see it honored in Playback in such a very special way. We listen; we really try to listen and not just with our ears, but with our entire bodies. It really kind of helps them to heal.
That sounds like it can be very therapeutic.
It is. Playback Theatre has its roots in drama therapy, so the therapeutic aspect is a real aspect of Playback. Even just being in the audience is so healing because you hear that other people are going through all of these different things. I mean, it could be happy, it could be sad, it could be everything in between. It can be traumatic, it can be completely ecstatic. And I think Playback Theatre gives to us performers as well as the audience. It gives everyone a sense that we’re more connected than we realize.
Is there anything else that you’d like to add?
I will say that all the cast — myself included — we’re all super excited about another opportunity to do this kind of a show [for the third time]. I feel very fortunate to be a part of an organization that fully supports this kind of a show. A part of me feels like there’s not a lot of my folks in this field, so the fact that we’ll have an almost all-Black audience come to see all-Black cast is significant. It’s important for people of color to see that representation in this unique and creative venue.
Playback Memphis will perform Juneteenth Memphis Matters on Saturday, June 10, 7-9 p.m., at TheatreSouth at First Congregational Church. Tickets can be purchased online for $20 until 4 p.m. on the day of the show. A limited number of seats will be available to purchase the night of the show.
If you’d like to “pay it forward,” $40 tickets are also available to cover the cost of tickets for another community member. If you have concerns about ticket costs, reach out to Adriane Hall at adriane@playbackmemphis.org.
