Soulotheatre : Transforming Your Stories into Solo Theatre. 4.69

Developed by Tracey Erin Smith at Toronto’s Ryerson University’s ACT II Studio, SoulOTheatre is an innovative, interactive program designed to help people create – write, direct and star – in their own one-person show by transforming raw material from their life-stories into creative personal story telling performances. Smith’s process turns personal experience into compelling and entertaining theatre, with no prior acting experience necessary.

Participants take part in writing and theatre exercises to explore their lives, gaining insight into their trials and triumphs, as well as their wisdom earned; and share a ten-minute performance with an audience of friends and family at the end of the course. Some graduates take the class again and again because they discover there is no end to the stories they have within them. And some graduates have gone on to perform full-length solo shows.

“soulOtheatre courses are very creative, empowering and super fun,” says Smith. “Participants share their stories, and hear the stories of others. In so doing, they bond in a deep way. Sharing these sometimes-hilarious, sometimes-heart-breaking – but always powerful – the presentations at the end of the course to a larger community, highlights the inherent worth and dignity of an individual life story and the ‘Hero’s Journey’ each one of us has lived so far,” she concludes.

soulOtheatre has been adapted and taught by Smith in a variety of settings to students from 18yrs to 80yrs – to people living with cancer, to seniors in community living facilities, to the general public, to professional actors at Toronto’s famed The Second City, and more.