Wendy Spurgeon (BFA) hails from Ashland, OR, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where she worked as part of the Acting Company for 2 years. She also worked as Actor, Director, Choreographer, and Performing Arts Teacher for many theatres in the Rogue Valley including Oregon StageWorks, Camelot Theatre Company, Oregon Cabaret Theatre, Rogue Music Theatre, Rogue Opera, and the Oregon Conservatory of Performing Arts. Here in Portland, Wendy has recently directed for PCC Sylvania, is teaching with StageCoach Theatre School in Lake Oswego, and has an upcoming production with Mt. Hood Repertory Theatre. She is excited about stretching her improv skills with Playback Theatre, and collaborating to provide a valuable service to the Portland Community!
The group was started and trained by Jackie Paris, who studied with Jonathan Fox, the creator of the Playback form, and Armand Volkas, Director of the Living Arts Counseling Center in CA.
Jackie is a registered Drama Therapist and relocated to the Portland area, after establishing and running a successful Playback Theater troupe in Hawaii for six years. Jackie worked as a professional actress since the age of 20, and has generated many original socio-political theater performances. More about Jackie can be found at www.jackieparis.net or jackieparis@comcast.net
About Playback Theater, Portland, OR
The Playback Theater Company of Portland, Oregon, is comprised of a mix of actors, dancers, singers, musicians and skilled group facilitators. We are a professional theater troupe who enjoy playing for a variety of audiences and in different venues. We value creativity and authenticity in human interactions, and are committed to the power of the personal story in building bridges between people and a enhancing a sense of interconnectedness.
Dino Paris is a corporate consultant and a licensed marriage family therapist specializing in: Transforming Business and Personal Relationships, and Enhancing Athletic Performance. He has counseled individuals couples, groups and corporations for over 25 years. As a Playback Theater conductor Dino lives his passion, helping people express their stories for the purposes of personal and global transformation . For more information follow these links: www.dinoparis.com or www.breakthroughtransformation.com
Rick Tangeman is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice. He works with individuals as well as couples and specializes in couples sexuality. Rick enjoys the opportunity to honor people's stories and the healing that can occur. This opportunity is what drew him to join the group. To find out more about his practice use this link http://www.baurassociates.com/therapists/tangeman.asp
"Sara McWilliams comes to Playback with an open heart and mind, an inquisitive nature, and a zest for experience. Having earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre in 2003, she moved to Los Angeles and became a theatre educator and preschool teacher. She and her husband moved to Portland in 2008 and love it. She can play the violin, makes jewelry, is hatching plans for graduate school, and is so very honored to be in it!"
Kevin Ferguson is an Emmy Award winning musician/scientist/engineer/inventor with over 20 patents, dozens pending and 8 albums including best sellers on guitar9.com. He is currently the music director of Playback Theater and also performs regularly in several world music groups (see debone.com).
Ryan Bowen is a husband and father of two, whose studies include theatre in the Professional Actors Training Program in Boston, piano at Portland State University and film at the NW Film Center. Ryan has experience on film sets and acting in numerous dramatic and musical plays. He has many years of training in martial arts and enjoys singing and playing guitar with a local band, not to mention a good prank when he is not at work as the president of Raindrop Roofing NW. He feels that the expression of each person’s truth is sacred and is both excited and grateful to be a mirror for that truth in Playback.
Daniel Buchanan is a diverse performer active as a singer, actor, composer, and pianist. He is passionate about seeing the performing arts provide healing, community, inspiration, and fun. His projects have brought him all over the USA and to Zimbabwe, South Africa, Denmark, England, and Venezuela. Most commonly performing as an opera singer, he performs roles regularly with the Portland Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and Opera Theater Oregon. He has also taken the stage with the Oregon Bach Festival, Portland Chamber Orchestra, Newport Symphony, New Orleans French Quarter Festival, and the Grammy-nominated vocal ensemble Conspirare. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, Abby. www.danielbuchanan.net
Marisol Goodman is an attorney specializing in estate planning and estate administration. Prior to launching her legal career, she worked with at risk families and disenfranchised adults and youth providing crisis counseling and case management. She holds a Juris Doctorate from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and a dual Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology and Anthropology from the University of Oregon. As a counterbalance to her career and in search of deepening her relationship to her community, Marisol first developed an affinity for Playback as a troupe member of the Pulse Playback. As a troupe member of Playback Theatre, she is excited and honored to listen to your stories and play them back to you!
Brynn Baron has been acting professionally since getting her B.F.A. in Theater at UCLA. She has studied at HB Studios, and Actors Studio West, and can be seen in numerous films, TV and commercial spots. She has worked at several theater companies around town, including Lakewood, Sojourn, Cygnet and Tapestry Theater companies. She currently teaches acting at StageCoach Theater and at the Multnomah Arts Center, and directs children's theater.
Shane LeighShane lei is a local actor/dancer/writer with a b.a. in theater and english from the university of portland. Last year, she expanded her artistic experience by co-creating an evening of plays as a director, choreographer, designer and performer. While not rehearsing with playback, she independently studies alternative medicine and other healing modalities. She is grateful to collaborate with playback to foster individual and collective celebration, joy & discovery.
Jenni Green Miller has been acting in and around Portland, Oregon for over 10 years, performing at ART, Lakewood Theater Company, Sowelu Theater Company, Curious Comedy, The Magdeline Theater Company and HART. She was also an ensemble member of Brainwaves Improvisation where she traveled to far away places like Sioux City, Iowa and Little Sioux City, Iowa. Jenni studied at the Portland Actors Conservatory and with Anne Bogart and the SITI Company in Syracuse NY and with Burning Wheel in LA. She’s currently a playwright, community speaker and Mom.
John Williams Johnson was a member of the Primal Theater Group in New York City from 1975 to 1980. He worked with members of the Polish Lab Theater and the Living Theater. He moved to LA to teach, and became involved in the West Coast Dance Scene. He took his own one man show “Waking Up: Confessions of A Narcoleptic Episcopalian” across the country , across Canada, and over to Russia and Europe. Hi current work combines his passion for the intersections of the healing and the performing arts.
Play Back Theater
Portland Oregon (503) 719-6328
Zhaleh Almaee is a full time Artist, Organizer and Playback Theater Practitioner with Iranian-American heritage. She works with Arts Rising to grow the Playback Theater movement in North America (www.ArtsRising.net). Her creative background includes Theater of Oppressed, Contact Improv, Ritual Theater, Drama Therapy, Non-Violent Communication and Laughter Yoga, among many others. By applying "theater of compassion" and other powerful approaches, Zhaleh intends to inspire connection, healing, and laughter to recover our humanity and find a new language of change.
Associate Members
Anna Schaum leads a multifaceted professional career in the performing and healing arts. A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, she has been a symphony viola player with such conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Carlos Kalmar; she has performed with the improv comedy troupe ComedySportz ("Anna One, Anna Two"); and having earned her MA in Counseling Psychology from the Pacifica Graduate Institute, she currently enjoys collaborating with clients in private practice as a Licensed Professional Counselor and Certified Psychodrama Practioner. Bobby McFerrin once told her, "You have the most musically expressive face I've ever seen." In Playback Theater Anna loves offering those expressions in service to peoples' stories. www.annaschaum.com