MARC WEINBLATT

After majoring in theater at Rutgers University, "I did the struggling-artist thing in New York," Weinblatt said, "directed Shakespeare and Brecht," and was only interested in plays that had to do with societal change. "I never did fluff."

After a career change to massage therapy and a move to Seattle, he met the founder of the Seattle Public Theater, which performed "theater for dialogue as opposed to agitprop theater," working in partnership with street youth agencies.

He learned about Augusto Boal, founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, around 1991, and started the Theatre of Liberation program in Seattle.

"A lot of people now do Theatre of the Oppressed and playback theater," he said.

"But there are few people who do training, and even fewer who have been doing it as long as Marc has," said Almaee-Weinblatt.

Weinblatt's annual Theatre of the Oppressed training brings 30-40 people from all over the world to town for a week each summer. Last July was his 19th year doing it, and his 10th in PT. It used to happen at the Palindrome; more recently, it has taken place at the Masonic Hall in Uptown.

Weinblatt has studied with Boal himself, bringing him to Seattle to do master classes. By teaching Theatre of the Oppressed, he is one of Boal's multipliers. "Part of my charge is to stimulate more multipliers," he said. "I've worked with thousands of people."

Weinblatt has traveled to Congo, Afghanistan, India, South Africa and Ireland in the last five years alone as a consulate worker with the U.S. State Department, which wanted a Theatre of the Oppressed representative to do workshops. In Belfast, Ireland, he had the task of addressing Catholic-Protestant tensions across the border. In Congo, he helped a group of leaders talk about the phenomenon of the "silent witness" to domestic violence. "What does a witness do when they see sexual assault by the chief of police?" Many of the groups he works with choose the theme of domestic violence. "It's often chosen worldwide," he said.

He described his work as generating awareness, giving people tools for change, giving people space to reflect on themselves and their stories, to feel camaraderie with others who share a struggle, healing from trauma.

ZHALEH ALMAEE-WEINBLATT

Almaee-Weinblatt grew up in southwestern Georgia and earned a degree in theater from Emerson College in Boston. She found playback theater at a monthly workshop called Playshop, at the True Story Theater Company. Playback is "a storytelling form of improv that, at the root, is to honor story.... People tell stories from their lives and watch it reenacted on the spot." She found mentors there and worked at Playshop for five years; she also went to Brazil to work with Jonathan Fox, the founder of playback theater.

"When you share a story, it may spark another story. A 'red thread' emerges, a connection. Imagine a thread that starts weaving through a community."

In Portland, Oregon, she helped run the Improbable Players, a company that went into schools and worked with people in recovery, using masks, puppetry and short skits. They would do a play, followed by a Q&A and, sometimes, a follow-up workshop.

The message was not an outright "Don't do drugs," she said, but something more like "You don't know you're an addict until it's too late."

Playback theater and Theatre of the Oppressed are similar, although "the TO community can be a little bit harsh," Weinblatt said. There's a feeling in Theatre of the Oppressed that is "We've got to organize and not feel too much," he said. Playback is, by contrast, "emotional, touchy-feely."

Weinblatt and Almaee-Weinblatt met about eight years ago in Minneapolis, where their respective theater companies were working together. About four years ago, they had a big wedding at Finnriver Farm & Cidery. Weinblatt has a son in high school, and the couple also has a 1-year-old son together, Darius.