Alight Theater Guild

03/12/2025

Spring 2025 Open Rehearsals ✨

🌱 Train with NYC Q***r Playback Theater in one of our upcoming Open Rehearsals!

About this event
Experience Playback Theater—a unique, improvisational form where real stories are shared by audience members and brought to life through movement, metaphor, music, and dialogue. This is your chance to witness and engage in a powerful, interactive storytelling process that fosters deep connection and community.

Since 2016, NYC Q***r Playback Theater has ‘held space’ (Cynthia & Ariana style 💖💚) to honor the stories of our LGBTQ+ community and allies.

Originating in 1975 in upstate New York, Playback Theater is a story-based interactive theatre practice where audience members tell personal stories, then watch them enacted on the spot by a trained team of actors and a musician. A facilitator, called the conductor, guides the process. As one teller follows another a dialogue emerges between the images and themes of these spontaneously told stories. Playback Theater is now practiced in over 70 countries as a tool for community building and social change.

At this Open Playback Rehearsal, you’ll have the opportunity to:
✨ Witness and learn the power of Playback Theater in action
✨ Share your own stories (if you choose)
✨ Connect with a welcoming, Q***r-centered community

No prior theater experience is needed—just bring your curiosity and an open heart!

📍 RSVP to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/spring-2025-open-rehearsals-tickets-1257624471649?aff=oddtdtcreator to receive the Manhattan rehearsal location.

📩 For questions, email [email protected]

Train with NYC Q***r Playback Theater in one of our upcoming Open Rehearsals!

06/30/2024

Pride month may be ending, but the work continues. For our latest episode of 🌳 Tree Speech, we were so happy to speak with Jonathon Stalls, a multidisciplinary walking artist who spent 242 days walking across the U.S. in 2010, and who continues to move alongside a wide variety of people and landscapes for days, weeks, or months at a time. All his projects center around themes of human connection, personal and planetary healing, racial and environmental justice, LGBTQIA2S+ belonging, and nature wisdom, and he is an inspiration.

His first book, WALK - Slow Down, Wake Up & Connect at 1-3 Miles Per Hour, was released in 2022 and is available nearly everywhere books and audiobooks are sold.

We hope you enjoy this episode, and wish you a Happy Pride! 🌳❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🏳️‍🌈🌳

06/19/2024

We hope you’ll join us for our open rehearsal to celebrate pride on Sat. June 29th from 12 noon- 1:30pm in NYC! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
Link to RSVP: https://forms.gle/znGfaHTcGoKbJWvM7

03/20/2023

NYC Q***r Playback Theater & NY Mandarin Playback are excited to bring you a collaborative virtual playback performance on Sat Apr 1 at 7 & 10pm EDT! We are hoping to bridge a connection with you across cultures and borders, to hear stories of the LGBTQ+ community and our Allies!

🌈Link to register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nyc-queer-playback-theater-ny-mandarin-playbacks-bridging-a-connection-registration-571936366067 🌈

New York Mandarin Playback - NYMP 紐約華語一人一故事劇場

12/10/2022

Tree Speech’s installation, A Conversation in a Clearing was featured in the Lowell Sun! Dori Robinson Western Avenue Studios & Lofts

LOWELL — During the pandemic, Jonathan Zautner watched the cycle of nature. Maybe that’s not remarkable for most people, but it inspired Zautner to capture the beauty of his surroundings.

10/26/2022

We are so excited to announce our first installation!

A Conversation in a Clearing will bring the Tree Speech podcast to life, allowing audiences to engage with trees, and reflect on their relationship with nature and the environment - as well as their place within a continual lineage of the earth and its seasons.

Combining audio narrative storytelling with a physical representation of a peaceful, winter clearing in the woods, the immersive installation allows visitors to actively relax, and settle into a peaceful place where their minds and hearts may feel at ease. This enchanted space allows the imagination to be free.

The exhibit will be running at the Storage Closet Gallery at 160 Western Ave, Floor 2, in Lowell, MA from November 5 through December 10, coinciding with Open Studios on 11/5, 12/3, and 12/10 from 12-5 pm at Western Avenue Lofts and Studios.

10/14/2022

We are so excited for our Q***r Playback Theater Ensemble members to be a part of the Serious Fun Arts Fest in White Plains on Friday Oct 14, with performances at 3:30pm and 5:30pm!

Come and join them as they playback their audiences' responses and reflections to visual artworks, including murals and sculptures throughout downtown White Plains.

The 5-day Serious Fun Arts Festival, (Oct 12-16) will feature 15 new artworks, a Gallery Hop, Live painting demos, free concerts, a Headliner Concert Celebration, an Art Fair, plus DJs and pop-up dance performances as well! Get ready for some creative and memorable Serious fun!

06/24/2022

Give us your hands, dear friends, as we lead you along the path of our own Midsummer Night’s Dream!

We conclude this season with a celebration of Midsummer and the summer solstice. Listen as our host hikes her way through the day, all while sharing stories about summer rituals and traditions from around the world.

06/12/2022

Oh, what a night! Thank you for all who came out, and all who cheered NYC Q***r Playback Theater on! Brooklyn Pride was a time for joy! 🖤🤎💜💙💚❤️🧡💛 Produced by at Sign logos by

06/11/2022

It was a pleasure to speak with John Philip Newell for our latest episode. We spoke of many things, including his book SACRED EARTH SACRED SOUL and the Celtic wisdom that holds many solutions to the challenges of our modern-day world, as well as how trees play a part in it all. 🌳

05/08/2022

For our latest Tree Speech episode, TREE OF LIFE, we asked our mothers, .harari, and to share a tree story of their own. We hope you enjoy this tribute to mothers of every form, covering anyone who has brought something to life and/or who fosters the growth of another, including a mother tree. 🌳