An award-winning actor, creator, director, choreographer, and theatre educator, Jordan Rosin is also a new member of The Northwest School faculty. In October, the Theatre and Dance Teacher added a new credit to their resume — author — when they published Storytelling on Screen: An Online Playback Theatre Archive and Guidebook.
"The experience has been exhausting, exciting, and informative, especially given the fact that it's Open Access since that complicated the process of getting the storytellers' consent to be recorded. The textbook is licensed under a Creative Commons By-Attribution, Non-Commercial Share-Alike 4.0 agreement, something I didn't know much about until undertaking the project," said Jordan who uses they/them/theirs pronouns. "We've had a lot of support from the folks at Virginia Tech University Libraries who funded the project."
Northwest students are benefiting from Jordan's work. They teach the textbook's subject matter in NWS Playback Theatre classes and they have been using parts of the book in the Upper School Improv Theatre class.
Storytelling On Screen, which Jordan co-authored with Heidi Winters Vogel, is an entirely free, open access, online educational resource consisting of a collection of full-length recordings of online Playback Theatre performances, and a 55-page explanatory guidebook. The guidebook, featuring a foreword by Playback Theatre co-founder, Jo Salas, explains the adaptation to online performances and some of the key concepts, roles, and forms involved in online Playback Theatre.
Jordan launched the textbook via Zoom on October 12, 2021. Since the session was recorded, you can join Jordan & Heidi Winters Vogel for the short launch event featuring a demonstration of how to navigate the archive, plus a Q&A. They discuss their process for creating full-length recordings of Playback events and why they’re useful. View the recording here.
If you’d like to look at the resource on your own, you can access it here.
If you are an artist, educator, or theatre-maker interested in using this resource, please help Jordan understand your anticipated use(s) of the resource by filling out this form.
Jordan received an MFA in Acting — with a focus on Ensemble-Based Physical Theatre and Community-Based Arts — from Dell’Arte International, and a BFA in Acting/Directing from Syracuse University. Most recently, they taught Acting and Applied Theatre, and directed for the Department of Theatre & Cinema at Virginia Tech as a Post-MFA Teaching Fellow. Their other primary teaching areas include Movement for Actors, Physical Theatre, Improvisation, Directing, Commedia, Clown, Arts Entrepreneurship, and Butoh Dance. Their creative research involves directing and performing ensemble-based physical theatre, often in applied/community-based contexts. Jordan brings more than 25 years' experience in theatre.
Contact Jordan.