Applied Theatre
Playback Theatre
Playback Theatre is a unique form of improvisational performance where audience members share their real-life stories and watch them instantly brought to life on stage.
Rooted in my sociological training, my practice uses this interactive form to hold space for community dialogue and honor human complexity. I specifically focus on the lived experiences of marginalized groups, everyday feminism, and creating safe theatrical containers for difficult moments and collective trauma.
Playback at Aoboting Xianlin Care Home
Nanjing Aoboting Xianlin Care Home 2025
Focus: Ageism, utilitarian society, and intergenerational memory.
Performing for an audience with an average age of 87, our ensemble of young actors listened to and improvised the residents' lived experiences on stage. We physically embodied the vast, distant worlds of their memories: fighting on battlefields, planting forests along the Yellow River, and traveling to distant frontiers in their youth.
When one resident tearfully shared that her story "would take days and nights to tell," our physical actions on stage worked to hold the tension between her arduous past and her present life. In a fast-paced, utilitarian society that often reduces the elderly to marginalized subjects, we used theatre to look beneath the surface and honor the immense weight of human complexity.
Visible Woman
Nanjing 2024
Focus: Everyday feminism, economic inequality, and self-presentation.
Integrating Arts-Based Research (ABR) with Playback Theatre, this project explored feminism not as an abstract ideological debate, but as a lived, everyday practice. By inviting women of different generations and backgrounds to share their unfiltered realities, we created a theatrical space where differing experiences could be held simultaneously. It was a sociological inquiry transformed into affective community resonance, allowing women to truly see and be seen by one another.
"In Playback Theatre, an actor is not a doctor who fixes a story, but a midwife who assists its birth."
Featured Projects
100+ Hours of Professional Training: Certified Level 2 Practitioner (including Core Training, Active Conducting, Heart & Art of the Story, and Object & Puppet).
Roles: Actor, Conductor & Facilitator.
20+ Performances: Actively engaged with Playback Theatre companies in Nanjing and Shanghai, performing for diverse communities ranging from university students to the elderly.
Producing & Community Building: Experienced in organizing independent projects, facilitating ensemble rehearsals, and cultivating applied theatre communities.
Parent Respite Program
Shanghai Children’s Medical Center 2025
Focus: Emotional support and a "breathing space" for parents of critically ill children.
In a busy hospital environment, parents are often treated simply as full-time caregivers, leaving no room for their own exhaustion or grief. Partnering with a local NGO, we created a safe space for them to take a psychological break.
First, we led applied theatre games like "body sculpting" to help parents relax physically and release unspoken tension. Then, as a Playback Theatre actor, I listened to and improvised their real stories on stage. We played back the complex reality of their journeys—the helplessness of watching their child suffer, mixed with the unexpected joy of pure companionship.
Drama in Education
Featured Projects
The Evil Congress
Shanghai 2025
The Gift from Spring God
Nanjing 2024
Exploring The Space
Nanjing 2023
The Wizard Of Oz
Nanjing 2024
