About T.O. Philly

Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed (T.O. Philly) is a network of people using the tools of theatre and popular education to dismantle oppression. Much of the work we do is based on the writings and teachings of the late Augusto Boal, who developed the Theatre of the Oppressed in Brazil over 40 years ago. We also draw upon other theatre games and movement traditions, as well as models of popular education like those put forth by Paolo Freire in his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

T.O. Philly offers public workshops that individuals and groups can come to. We also work for organizations and institutions. We can tailor a workshop to whatever your group needs. You can see who we've worked with and what we've got coming up on this website's sidebar. Below are a few curricula that we regularly run. To bring a workshop to you, email "tophilly@gmail.com" or call 267-282-1057.

Theatre of the Oppressed
Intro, Intermediate & Advanced Workshops

We offer everything from single 90-minute sessions, to weekly classes and full day, weekend, or week-long retreats that cover the history, theory, and practice of Theatre of the Oppressed games, techniques, and traditions. These workshops cover the trunk of the Theatre of the Oppressed tree, with human sculpture-driven Image Theatre as a base for the interactive performances of Forum Theatre for which Theatre of the Oppressed is internationally known.

Games: Playing & Teaching

Whether you just want to play games or learn some games that you can play with others, we can do that! T.O. Philly has hundreds of games for groups of any size or age range that get us out of our heads and into our bodies, build trust and a cooperative spirit, and get at issues of social justice. Whether it's just for one or two hours, or one or two days, let the games begin!

Dis/ability Justice 

Many of Theatre of the Oppressed's games and techniques "dynamize the senses" by working in silence or darkness or with limited mobility. Since 2012, we've been using these techniques to address issues of ability and disability. In 2015 T.O. Philly supported work on a play about vision loss and dis/ability passing with a series of sessions called Blind Games. In 2016 we expanded some of those ideas into a broader workshop called Unpacking Ability. Facilitated by people on the dis/ability spectrum, these themes can run deep in just a couple hours.

Workshopping Gender

As our public discourse around gender and sexuality continues to change, the occasional workshop can help members of an organization or institution get on the same page. We offer everything from a "Gender 101" to more intensive sessions for groups ready to delve deeper into gender dynamics.

Unpacking Race 

In 2013 we rolled out a curriculum all about race and undoing racism. We offer a short workshop called "Engaging Courageous Conversations on Race" that gives the basics. The "Unpacking Race" module can be a multi-part workshop series, weekend retreat, or something that a group does over the course of many months. We also offer workshops on undoing racism specifically for people of color and/or white allies, including a session that identifies White Fragility.

Group Dynamics

Theaatre of the Oppressed is a also a tool for organizations interested in improving communication, colllaboration, workplace environment, and for better fullfillment of a group's mission and vision.

The Cop & The Rainbow

The Cop in the Head and the Rainbow of Desire represent the introspective branch of Theatre of the Oppressed with roots in psychological and internalized forms of oppression. We can offer these sessions as performance demonstrations, with audience members volunteering to step up onstage to be in a scene. We also run Cop/Rainbow as one-day or two-day intensives. These techniques are really meant to be done on an ongoing basis as they are about a group coming together to collectively disarm the cops in our heads and sort out a spectrum of sometimes conflicting desires so that we have more tools for contending with ourselves in everyday life.

Bring T.O. to you!

To book any of the above workshops (or others not on the list) email "tophilly@gmail.com" or leave a message at 267-282-1057 and someone will get back to you shortly.

Winter 2016 Update

Our Unpacking Race series
returns in March 2016.

2015 brought Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed (T.O. Philly for short) to new areas of our city and beyond. We held public workshops in West Philly at The Rotunda and in South Philly at a new space called The Whole Shebang. We also worked with students at UArts, UPenn, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and Goddard Colleges, and as part of a social justice day at the Hun School of Princeton. We formed a small Theatre of the Oppressed collective that collaborated with residents of Southeast Philly on Playgrunds for Useful Knowledge, a pilot project created by Mural Arts and Cohabitation Strategies. We also explored issues of dis/ability justice, vision loss and passing in workshops that fed into a performance called CONES through T.O. Philly's sibling, the Medium Theatre Company.

Looking ahead to 2016, we bring back our popular series on race and racism called Unpacking Race. During the month of March we'll explore this topic through group exercises, Theatre of the Oppressed techniques, and discussions, supplemented by things to read and do between sessions. Our aim is to unlearn the systemic racism we’ve been taught our entire lives, to heal from racial privilege and oppression, and to offer starting points for structural and personal change in ourselves, our communities, and our world. To pre-register or get more info, send an email to "tophilly@gmail.com".

Below: Mural Arts' video of Playgrounds for Useful Knowledge.

T.O. Philly News: Summer 2014

It's been a spectacular spring! Several amazing facilitators officially joined the T.O. Philly team and led a variety of workshops in April and May at the Rotunda. Having so many Jokers* on deck, we were for the first time able to be practicing Theatre of the Oppressed in multiple places at once. Here's a synopsis of where we've been and who we've been with in the past couple months:

We were invited facilitators at the Zami conference for LGBTQ+ people of color, for the Ethical Humanist Society's Building an Ethical Future conference (which is where the photos on the right were taken), and at the Young Adult Friends Conference at Pendle Hill.

At local institutions, we did Image Theatre with Temple University's Institute on Disabilities, made quick Forum Theatre pieces with student art teachers through Tyler College's Arts Education Program, and brought Theatre of the Oppressed to UPenn to highlight the importance of improvisation as a tool for social change.

We also led games and anti-oppression group work with people from all over the world at the Girls Rock Camp Alliance's conference in New Jersey and for Action Service Reconciliation for Peace's seminar in D.C.

This summer we resume work with transgender and gender-variant youth at Camp Aranu'tiq on the East and West Coasts, with students and faculty at Goddard College in Vermont, with Mariposa Co-op's Food Justice and Anti-Racism group in West Philly, with South Philly's Burmese and Bhutanese refugee community at Growing Home Gardens, and with LGBT teens at The Attic Youth Center in central Philadelphia.

What else will 2014 bring? You tell us! Leave us a message on our new voicemail at 267-282-1057, or drop us a line at ye olde email: tophilly@gmail.com.

Hope to see you soon!

—The T.O. Philly Team

*Joker is a Theatre of the Oppressed term for "facilitator" and also "difficultator". For more insight in to that, see our glossary of T.O. jargon.

T.O. Philly News: Winter 2014

2013 may have been the best year yet for Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed with many amazing facilitators sharing their expertise: Ariel Morales, Magda Scharf and Morgan Andrews unpacked race and unraveled religion, Qui Alexander workshopped gender, Julie Lipson and Mason Rosenthal helped us hone our voices, and Erika Barrington and Amy Capomacchio created a dialogue about the the relationship between therapeutic goals and the goals of social change in their workshop for mental health professionals, which they then brought to the American Dance Therapy Association's national conference in New York.  All in all it's been a year of powerful, wide-ranging and wide-reaching work.

The question of therapeutic goals and the goals of social change is a good one.  Douglas Hundley raises the issue in his essay, "Theatre of the Oppressed: An American Tradition?" (Platform Vol. 1, No. 1, Autumn, 2006) where he writes about Augusto Boal's training in New York and how U.S. political and experimental theatre-makers during the Great Depression and Vietnam War helped shape the development of T.O. in South America.  Hundley concludes in saying that when Boal's work was brought back to North America, "the potentially subversive edge was gone and replaced with techniques for coping with society rather than changing society." (Hundley, 27).  This is something that T.O. Philly considers in the work that we do: workshops are often experiential and personally transformative, but they are only rehearsals for reality—real transformation can only come from taking action in the wider world.

We also recognize that in Theatre of the Oppressed there is the "theatre" side and the "of the oppressed" side and that both are important, which is why we offer a spectrum of events for a spectrum of desires.  On the theatre of side of things this January, we are promoting a 3-day workshop with Donna Oblongata drawing on traditional puppetry techniques, Pochinko clown teaching, and the her own theatre company's method of creation and performance.  Mason Rosenthal and Morgan Andrews will also be staging their new play "Nobody's Home", which was devised in part using T.O. techniques.  See the T.O. Philly Calendar on the right side of this page for details.

On the "of the oppressed" side, we are teaming up with Mariposa Co-op to present a month of anti-oppression events, including a Theatre of the Oppressed workshop on January 11th.  We are also working with Temple University's Institute on Disabilities, Bryn Mawr College's Education Program, and Haverford College's Student Leadership Office to bring anti-oppression pedagogy to students and faculty working both on and off-campus. More details soon!

Photos are from our Images of Transition workshop in December of 2013. The images above depict views on the mental health care system.

T.O. Philly News: Summer 2013

Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed (nickname: "T.O. Philly") uses theatre games and techniques as tools for rehearsing reality. We do this with people in Philly and elsewhere, either by invitation from a group or organization, or by leading workshops in our communities. This post highlights what we've done recently, and what we've got planned for the rest of 2013.

What We've Been Up To:

Graphic for a workshop we held in 2010.
See more graphics in our archive.

T.O. Philly had a busy spring, with travels to North Carolina to work with Paperhand Puppet Intervention, and to DC with Action Reconciliation Service for Peace.  Locally we had a few short workshops led by various facilitators. For one, Morgan Andrews led people through the Rainbow of Desire technique, and in another, Magda Scharf visited from Berlin for a one day workshop about religion. We also had several T.O.-related events focusing on gender, beginning with Qui Alexander's evening workshop. Qian Li came from California to present Theatre of the Oppressed at the Trans Health Conference, and we raised $1,000 for Camp Aranu'tiq, where a couple of us will be running workshops with trans and gender-variant youth this August.

Summer Retreat?  Not this year...  
Facilitation Workshop?  Yes!!!

A summer retreat was in the works (last year's retreat was a big success), but a variety of factors prevented it from coming together this year. In lieu of that, we're holding a free facilitation workshop on Saturday August 24th from 1pm to 5pm. This will be a session in preparation for the upcoming academic year, with a focus on working with students and youth (though not exclusively) and troubleshooting problem situations that may arise in classroom/group settings.  Click here for full event information.

Fall Series and More!

This fall we've booked Monday nights at the Rotunda and are planning on running two different weekly series—one in October, one in November—likely around the topics of gender and interrupting racism (see the Unpacking Race tab under "Who We Are and What We Do" for a recap of our last series about race).  We'll also continue working with students and faculty at Haverford College and University of the Arts, with Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's Young Friends, with yoga teachers-in-training at Studio 34 in West Philly, and with the dancers and choreographers at Mascher Space Co-op in Kensington. As always, T.O. Philly facilitators are available to do this work for any organizations that want it—Contact us via "tophilly@gmail.com" for details!

T.O. Philly News: Spring 2013

What an amazing winter it's been!  We had a great turnout for a day-long workshop on the Rainbow of Desire technique, and did some work with students at Haverford College and dancers at University of the Arts.   Ariel Morales and Morgan Andrews led a month-long curriculum on race and interrupting racism that included games and theatre pieces, as well as readings and videos, all of which are posted on this blog—See the Unpacking Race tab on the right for easy reference.  The series proved so popular that we will offer an expanded version of it again in the near future.

On April 23rd Qui Alexander led an evening workshop about gender, and on June 8th Magda Scharf visits from Berlin to lead a one day workshop about religion.  To sign up, send an email to "tophilly@gmail.com".  We're also seeking proposals for other workshops in spaces around Philly, as well as input and ideas for another summer retreat.  Please give us feedback by leaving a comment below.


In April, Morgan went to North Carolina to lead a free workshop for people interested in cooperative economics and food justice in Durham, and then an artistic development weekend for Paperhand Puppet Intervention, a theatre company that does incredible stuff around Chapel Hill and Raleigh.  He also went to Washington, DC and worked with 21 German volunteers who are in the U.S. for the year through Action Reconciliation Service for Peace.  Morgan also uses Theatre of the Oppressed techniques to make devised work with the Medium Theatre Company—Read about their latest project here.

T.O. Philly News: 2012-2013

2012 has been filled with new and different things for Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed. We hosted weeknight workshop series in the winter, spring and fall, a summer retreat, a 2-part facilitator/difficultator training, and some of us went to the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference in California. We also led workshops with youth interns from the Urban Nutrition Initiative and for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's Young Friends group at Camp Onas.

Heading out of 2012 and into 2013 we have some exciting things coming up with different facilitators leading workshops on a variety of topics:

• November 27 & 29: Guest facilitator Magdalena Scharf returns from Germany to lead workshops about games and language at Studio 34's new arts space!
• January-March 2013: Ariel Morales and Morgan Andrews present a 5-part workshop series called "Unpacking Race" that will include readings, discussions and Theatre of the Oppressed about race and racism.
• Forum Theatre? Rainbow of Desire? (See our online glossary for an explanation of these terms): People want to start a group to either create and perform Forum Theatre or to work with Rainbow of Desire techniques. Either of these will require a solid group to meet regularly and consistently. If you are interested, leave us a comment and tell us which you'd like to do!

See you soon!

T.O. Philly News: Summer 2012

Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed began 2012 with a bunch of weekly workshops, free intro classes, and held our first facilitator (and difficultator) trainings. Some of these sessions were recorded by Gabriel Dattatreyan, a local filmmaker who is putting together an ethnographic documentary called Image to Lifeworld, about how those of us using Theatre of the Oppressed in Philadelphia take the work beyond the workshop into our communities, our relationships, and our wider world. We hope to screen Gabriel's film in the fall.

A few of us also traveled to California to attend the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed (PTO) Conference in Berkeley, funded in part by T.O. Philly's 2012 Scholarship. We put some of what we learned at PTO to use with the Urban Nutrition Initiative in a team-building and social justice workshop with staff and youth interns. We've also been invited back to Camp Onas to do similar work with teens from all over Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Events on the horizon include a Theatre of the Oppressed Retreat from August 10–12 at Fellowship Farm in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. If you're interested in going, there are a few spots reserved for last-minute registration. We are, as always, available to lead workshops of any size and shape that you like—please get in touch! tophilly@gmail.com or 215-730-0982.

T.O. Philly News: Spring 2012

Graphic from Gayer Panchali (Song of the Village),
from the book Where We Stand: Five Plays from 
the Repertoire of Jana Sanskriti, used by permission.

Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed has had a productive and fun fall and winter. In West Philly, we held several series of workshops on Games, Image Theatre, and Rainbow of Desire, which included readings by Augusto Boal and members of India's Jana Sanskriti movement. We also co-facilitated a retreat with German volunteers from Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, and shared T.O. tools with North American volunteers from Reach Up, Reach Out, who are traveling to Guatemala to teach acro-yoga and capoeira to kids. (They're having a pancake brunch fundraiser this Sunday—do come!)

Right now a few of us are involved with a theatre project called The Sea of Tranquility  that debuts inside a historic mansion in Allamuchy, New Jersey (about 2 hours from Philly by car, 60 minutes from NYC). The piece is devised work, meaning that the script gets developed through its rehearsal process, and includes physical theatre, live music, dance and mask work. We're also integrating a lot of Image Theatre into our process as we take local folklore and explore how stories can be told from different perspectives. Performances are March 2nd, 3rd and 4th at 6:30 and 8pm in Rutherfurd Hall, right off of I-80 in Allamuchy. More details and tickets can be obtained from Rutherfurd Hall's website.

This spring in Philly we will host our first Theatre of the Oppressed facilitator training on two consecutive Saturdays—March 17th and 24th at Studio 34 from 11am to 6pm. Tuesday night workshops will resume at the Rotunda, plus there will be a number of fundraising events to help folks travel to the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference in California. To pre-register for the trainings, or for more info on these events, drop us a line: "tophilly@gmail.com"  or call 215-730-0982.

See you soon!

T.O. Philly News: Winter 2011-2012

2011 has been packed with a number of weekly workshops exploring different aspects of Theatre of the Oppressed, including communication without words, exploring the senses, and developing tools for facilitation. We also started hosting public performances of a family of techniques called the Rainbow of Desire. Known as "the Boal method of theatre and therapy," the Rainbow of Desire takes people's ongoing experiences with oppression and replays the situations in which these oppressions occur. We use the stage and the audience to expose hidden elements of the story, then take the pieces of the story apart and put them back together in a way that we would like the situation to be. From there we work to expand these acts of liberation beyond the stage and into the wider world. The Rainbow of Desire is a personally transformative process—If you'd like to host or participate in a workshop, get in touch!

Other things T.O. Philly has done this year have included a screening of the film Jana Sanskriti: A theater on the field, about the large Theatre of the Oppressed movement in India. The screening coincided with the release of the book, Celebrate People's History: The Poster Book of Resistance and Revolution, and the printing of a Jana Sanskriti poster featured in the book. Details on this show are posted on the venue's website. We also started a reading group to study and discuss some of the more historical and theoretical aspects of Augusto Boal's work, and some of us have been involved with ongoing Forum Theatre workshops and performances at the Attic Youth Center in Philadelphia. T.O. Philly has also been focusing on food justice by doing work with Mariposa Co-op in West Philly and at the Rooted in Community Youth Conference, hosted by the Urban Nutrition Initiative.

Outside of Philadelphia, T.O. Philly recently held college workshops with

North American Students of Cooperation at the University of Michigan; for an Applied Theatre course at The College of New Jersey; with the Marywood Players Theatre Club of Marywood University; and for a service learning program with students from William & Mary College. We also led trainings with English For Action in Providdence, RI; at Our Space LGBTQ drop-in center in Hayward, CA; at national retreats organized by the Jewish Farm School; at a camp for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's Young Friends program; and at the 17th Annual Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference in Chicago.

For more info about what we do or how you can get involved, contact us at 215-730-0982 or "tophilly@gmail.com".

T.O. Philly News: Fall 2011

2011 was an active year for Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed, full of games, workshops, performances, travels and actions that brought this work into the wider world. On the local front, we rounded out two years of work at the Attic Youth Center with a 6-week service learning project that brought LGBTQ teens and allies together to address the issue of bullying. T.O. Philly facilitators also did some work with the Occupy Movement, as well as two dozen German volunteers who are in the U.S. for a year through Action Reconciliation Service for Peace. We'll have a post up soon with more info about our collaborations with these organizations, and look for info about our upcoming workshops on Tuesday evenings at the Rotunda.

Analytical Image from the Rainbow of Desire

Beyond Philadelphia, T.O. Philly represented at the annual Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference in Chicago with a workshop called "Making Mistakes" about what we can do when this work does not work. In the summer we led a day-long Image Theatre workshop at Camp Onas with Quaker youth from all over Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and this fall a trip to Providence brought us to lead a training with English for Action, an ESL organization that uses the pedagogy of language education to enact social change.

Besides announcing our classes and events (of which there were many this past year) we're now using this blog as a general resource for all things Theatre of the Oppressed, including:

• Games: Rules for playing games and how the games can be applied to the work we do.
• Graphics: For public use by anyone who does Theatre of the Oppressed and wants an image for a flyer or the web.
• Glossary: In case someone's uses a T.O. term that others don't understand, now there's an online resource to ease up the jargon.

All of these resources are open source—please use them and attach a link to our blog if you do. And please contribute: if you have questions, variations on games, graphics or definitions for terms, leave us a comment or drop us a line and we'll add you in!

Thanks for reading. Hope to see you in 2012!