new playback theatre book

[Adam Blatner]

New Book:  Do My Story, Sing My Song: Music therapy and Playback Theatre with troubled
children, by Jo Salas, a co-founder of Playback Theatre. (2007).
     (ISBN 978-0-9642350-6-9; 177 pages; $19). From Tusitala Publishers.
          Do My Story, Sing My Song can be ordered by going to 
<http://www.playbackcentre.org/tusitala> or call 845.255.8163.  Quantity discounts and 
review copies are available on request.

 Please see below for comments by Dr Clive Robbins, Zerka Moreno, and Eric Booth.

Do My Story, Sing My Song tells the stories of children in residential treatment, 
diagnosed as severely emotionally disturbed, who took part in music and drama therapy with 
the author. Engaging, informative, and moving, this book is for general readers, teachers, 
parents, artists, therapists, policy makers, and anyone interested in children and the 
arts within or beyond therapeutic contexts.

Jo Salas holds a master¹s degree in music therapy from New York University and was 
certified by the American Association for Music Therapy. She is also a pioneer of Playback 
Theatre, an original form of improvisation based on
telling and enacting true stories. Her book Improvising Real Life: Personal Story in 
Playback Theatre was recently published in Chinese, its fifth translation.
.

Advance praise for Do My Story, Sing My Song:

³I was deeply moved by this natural, human and heart-touching book. The style is so 
unassuming and clear. How well the author serves these embattled children!"    --Dr Clive 
Robbins, Director of the Nordoff Robbins Center, New York University, co-founder of the 
Nordoff Robbins Clinics, London and New York, and co-author of Creative Music Therapy.

³The children whom Jo Salas writes about were all, in one form or another, profoundly 
disturbed. And yet she managed to contact them with a model composed of music, art, 
storytelling, role playing and various forms of
drama. With delicate insight, deep tenderness and above all, with creativity, she deals 
with the magic, too often buried and untouched, that is to be found in 
dren.²     --Zerka Moreno, psychodramatist and co-author (with J.L. Moreno) of Who Shall 
Survive? (Vol. 2.) and co-author of Psychodrama, Surplus Reality and the Art of Healing.

³A fine accomplishment with an inspiring, yet usually overlooked, subject. Jo Salas has 
written a powerful testament to the raw power of artistic experience and the redemptive 
power of creative expression. She has the poet¹s eye for telling detail, the playwright¹s 
ear for the surprising (and hilarious) rich dialog, and the writer¹s gift for capturing 
troubled
children in elegant, beautiful portraits.² --Eric Booth, Founder of Juilliard's Art and 
Education Program, consultant
to The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center Institute, and Tanglewood, and author of The 
Everyday Work of Art.