Performance Meets Purpose: CHA and IMPACT Playback Collaborate

Impact Playback Theatre

A theater ensemble of nine performers on a stage. Most are seated in a row on wooden blocks, laughing and reacting animatedly. Two performers sit apart on the left holding microphones, one gesturing expressively. On the far right, a performer plays a cello while another stands nearby. A costume rack with colorful fabrics is visible in the center background, along with a patterned area rug and floor microphones on the stage.

Your Stories on Stage

Impact Playback performers

Empathy In Action

Five performers on a stage at CU Boulder. In the foreground, a performer in a white shirt and blue fabric skirt sits on steps with one arm dramatically outstretched. Two performers lean over them supportively from behind, while a fourth looks on from the left. A costume rack with props and wigs is visible in the background.

Capturing the Heart of Communities

Colorado River Stories ~ Legacies of Water

Conversations That Connect

What is Playback?

Playback Theatre is an interactive, improvisational theatre form in which audience members share true stories or experiences from their lives and see them “played back” by an ensemble of trained actors in ways that encourage insight across difference. 

Like a cross between a town hall meeting and an improvisational performance, one actor from the ensemble (“the conductor”) engages the audience in a collective conversation, asking questions that address the specific concerns of those gathered. The audience’s responses are played back on the spot in non-confrontational ways that boost insight, strengthen social bonds, and lift civic spirit.

Impact Playback logo

Upcoming Events

May 7: Grand Mesa Story Share

7:00 pm | $20 per person | Grand Mesa, CO

Experience the dynamic and unforgettable journey of three Cedaredge stories through storytellers, videographers, musicians, writers, visual artists, and actors at Grand Mesa Arts & Events Center. Get tickets here. 

7:00 pm | Adults $10 | Lamp Post Creative Learning Center, Cortez, CO

Get tickets here. 

Poster for the Cortez Story Share Event on May 12, 2026
Poster for the Grand Mesa Story Share Event on May 7, 2026

About Impact Playback Theatre

Since 2019, IMPACT Playback, CU Boulder’s Playback Theatre Ensemble, has delivered dynamic performances and workshops across a wide range of campus and community events—including the CU Diversity and Inclusion Summit, Health and Wellness Summit, Just & Equitable Teaching Program, conflict management courses, and other student-centered initiatives.

Since 2020, the Ensemble has also led the Outreach-funded Critical Conversations Project, using Playback Theatre techniques to foster empathy, deep listening, and connection across differences—particularly in rural Colorado communities facing rapid and destabilizing social, economic, or environmental change. This work culminated in a 2023 collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, supporting the traveling exhibition Crossroads: Change in Rural America across the state.

Partnership with CHA
We recently announced the signing of a Memorandum of Collaboration (MOC) between CU Boulder's IMPACT Playback Theatre Ensemble and the Center for Humanities & the Arts (CHA). This partnership formalizes a shared commitment to fostering inclusive storytelling, community engagement, and arts-based dialogue across the CU Boulder campus and broader community. Through this collaboration, IMPACT and CHA aim to support the transformative power of performance and humanities scholarship in advancing equity, empathy, and creative expression.

The Impact Playback Ensemble comprises CU faculty, staff, graduate students, and undergraduates from across disciplines. Members train weekly through rehearsals, and all performances are paid.

Playback Theatre Ensemble is led by Dr. James F. Walker  whose work centers on undergraduate education with a focus on diversity, metacognitive learning, and inclusive pedagogical practices. His additional research interests span race and gender studies, dystopian literature and film, and the rhetoric and praxis of performance—particularly Playback Theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed, and other applied, interactive theatre forms that support social change.

Ruby Anderson, Elise Collins, Lauren Fiddes and Tania Guzman Jurado perform at Grand Mesa Arts Center

 

PHOTO CREDIT: Marianne Potje
DESCRIPTION: Members of CU's Impact Playback Theatre Ensemble use improvised forms of music, theatre and movement to bring audience members stories to life, during a PACES-sponsored public performance at the Grand Mesa Arts Center, Cedaredge, Colorado, in March 2024.
SHOWN (l to r): Ruby Anderson, Elise Collins, Lauren Fiddes, Tania Guzman Jurado

Grants & Commissions

  • Five Outreach and Engagement (now PACES) Awards to conduct multi-day residencies in rural communities experiencing destabilizing social and economic change
  • Six UROP Awards to support ongoing recruitment and training of undergraduates from across CU
  • Two Arts in Society Awards to support further outreach residencies in Walsenburg, Trinidad and Paonia Colorado, in support of the traveling Smithsonian exhibit, Crossroads: Change in Rural America
  • Two UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center Commissions for private keynote performances / facilitations for Belonging Colorado initiative
  • CHA Graduate Student Award to support grad student collaborations with the Center for Teaching and Learning’s Just and Equitable Teaching (JET) Program
  • President’s Fund for the Humanities Award for a Renee Crown Wellness Institute collaboration in support of Donna Mejia’s Fumble Forward initiative, a framework for holding constructive intercultural dialogues
  • City of Longmont Commission for public performance on gentrification and economic change: “Don’t Boulder my Longmont!”
  • Boulder Jewish Community Center (JCC) Commission for public performance on history, community and belonging: “We Are Our Stories”
  • Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) Grant through CHA for project on Colorado River and its meanings to various regional and Indigenous communities
  • Research and Innovation Office (RIO) Award in support of CHCI Colorado River project
  • LOR Grant to coordinate Cortez, Colorado’s first annual Story Share Event and aligned community programming (multi-day residency) 

Publicity

Past Performances

Six performers on a stage against a stone wall. On the left, two performers stand upright watching the action. In the center, a layered group creates a dynamic tableau — one reaches forward with an outstretched arm while others crouch and lie low on the floor. To the right, a cellist seated in a chair plays accompaniment
A theater ensemble of nine performers on a stage. Most are seated in a row on wooden blocks, laughing and reacting animatedly. Two performers sit apart on the left holding microphones, one gesturing expressively. On the far right, a performer plays a cello while another stands nearby. A costume rack with colorful fabrics is visible in the center background, along with a patterned area rug and floor microphones on the stage.
Colorado River Stories ~ Legacies of Water
Colorado River Stories ~ Legacies of Water
Five performers on a theater stage. In the center, a tall performer in a green button-up shirt and black pants stands on a wooden box with arms outstretched, being steadied by two performers on either side holding their hands. The performer on the left wears a magenta top and holds a blue garment; the performer on the right wears a blue top. A person in a white sweatshirt walks toward the group from the left, and a performer in a green shirt stands to the five improv performers stage a dramatic scene
Four Impact Playback performers stage a dramatic scene at Grand Mesa Arts Center.
Five performers on a stage at CU Boulder. In the foreground, a performer in a white shirt and blue fabric skirt sits on steps with one arm dramatically outstretched. Two performers lean over them supportively from behind, while a fourth looks on from the left. A costume rack with props and wigs is visible in the background.

Get In Touch With Us

Fill out the Interest Form to learn more about participating.

Submit the Performance Request Form to request a performance or workshop for your group.

For other inquiries, contact: James.F.Walker@colorado.edu

  Follow Impact Playback on Instagram