WHAT PARTICIPANTS SAY...
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“Healing Theatre has been a profound
and transformational experience for me.
The result is turning out to be way beyond
what I could have possibly concocted
in the very wildest places of my imagination:
healing, revealing, theatrical, emotional,
and oh, so helpful to me.”
Laurey Masterton
"The experience provided me with a safe place
to explore my deepest wounds and fears.
It demanded an intimacy and vulnerability
that made me dig deep within myself.
What I pulled out will be with me forever
and has profoundly changed my life.”
Ben Neiman
“…layer after layer was gently shed,
and as each layer fell away,
from the center of me emerged
this voice kept quiet and denied for too long.”
Noemi Santana
“I am stronger from speaking, from being vulnerable,
and I am grateful for the structure and safety
to share my own stories with others and be heard.
This process has helped me be more real,
more grounded and at peace with myself.”
Liz Moe
“Healing Theatre has been the most in depth,
provocative and fun process I have ever done.
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I rejoice in reclaiming the power
of my masculinity and the strength I feel
in expressing this energy in my life.
I am a healthier, more alive person now.”
David Goldstein
“In the process I have grieved
ancient griefs and found
my passion, and my love for life.”
Shelly Smith
“Being in a Healing Theatre Lab is like
being ‘born again’ and then going out
into the marketplace, standing on a soap box
and proclaiming,“ I am here…I have arrived…
I am humbled at what I found
deep inside myself. This is what I found.
This is scary but I must tell you what I found.
In telling you, I own and love my life
without apology or exception.”
Donna Whitaker
“I am bringing forth a level of integrity,
strength and courage in areas of my life
where this had previously no foundation
for success. The myth is a powerful
conduit for this, and Olivia
has a powerfully discerning, sensitive and
straightforward approach that facilitates
this kind of reconnection.”
Irisha Pomerantzeff
Healing Theatre for me gave me an opportunity to reconnect to my creative self in a very unique way. What I was truly desiring to discover was myself, but I was terrified
at being seen whether I was acting or just being ...
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Healing Theatre created an ally or a bridge across this great abyss which I had come face to face with so many times
in my life - the thing that kept me from doing what I love: completing a creative project, and whatever it was that kept
me from making “any” changes in my life.
I discovered that I had so many stories in my life
that were not just experience that happened to me,
they held keys to understanding who I am in this world.
Erin Kinney
"This workshop has met all my expectations.
It has been a workshop for taking my personal
and spiritual growth on the road – the road of integration
and embodiment of everyday life.”
Vince Newton
“Healing Theatre has given me a safe place
to allow some of my most vulnerable aspects
to be owned and seen…I am able to walk
more confidently into each moment.” '
Rebecca Huda Ramm
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“Olivia has a genuine talent
for extracting core emotional truths
from our everyday stories and for weaving those truths
into moving performances. As an actor,
it was also the most powerful script
I have ever performed, and the most powerful
workshop I have ever done.
Harlan Wood
“True initiations don’t come often
and they don’t come easy.
True initiations provide us the vehicle
to see ourselves for what we are made of -
Such a vehicle is Healing Theatre."
Malana Riverah
“The process has been one of reaching –
of going inside myself and bringing forth
that unacknowledged part of me. I have been carried
far beyond my level of comfort…
in order to recognize and honor my feminine power.”
Margaret Whittemore
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“I signed up for a Healing Theatre workshop
to explore new directions. I was challenged,
inspired and wonderfully surprised by the insights I gained.”
Hilary Burke Porter
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“I am finally coming forth. I have more joy
back in my life. I am having fun.
I am able and willing to be
more loving, serene and compassionate.
Healing Theatre has given me
my life in a way I knew was possible.”
Eloiza Claire
[Doing Healing Theatre] was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences I have had.
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Rich and powerful, it helped me look at aspects of myself that had lived in the shadows for years.
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Olivia uses her strong, creative and intuitive skills
to bring out what is hidden or silent
and yet is wanting expression and healing.
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Presenting the generally unconscious material
in an entertaining and yet authentic way was amazing –
both scary and exhilarating – definitely empowering.
I highly recommend this work to anyone
deeply committed to growth and healing.
Ellen La Penna
“Healing Theatre did for me what five years of psychotherapy didn’t.
Where psychotherapy was a process of ‘emptying’ for me,
Healing Theatre filled me up with something after the emptying,
filled me with a sense of wholeness. I am amazed at Olivia Woodford’s
skill and talent to take people unaccustomed to acting and theatre work
and create an environment where they can expose and share
their deepest feelings and experiences, not only with the group
but with a receptive audience.”
Pat Farmer
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It was great! Tough, scary, thrilling, exciting, expanding
all at the same time. The last performance was magical.
We became one cohesive voice, audience and all.
It was unlike anything I have ever felt before…
I am much clearer within my direction in life and stronger
as a result of being in the Performance Lab.
Sananda Jahaan
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“I found the self discovery process that happened in Healing Theatre
intensely exciting. It gave me a way of finding myself through a back door.
It wasn’t intellectual. Those things that I found out about myself
stayed with me. Olivia had a masterful way of synthesizing
all the disparate stories and dialogue into a play with a beginning, middle, and end. The final play and performance was funny, entertaining, and profoundly moving
for the people involved and also the audiences. And that is incredible.”
Vanessa Campbell
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I was so afraid of appearing on stage. I found to my surprise
that the play practices were more a process of taking away the ‘show’, the cover, and more an arena to discover the core of who I am, and what I have to say - entering into that sacred place within while being in the company of others.
It was a process of recognizing the divine/human in each one of us
and taking a look – rather than running away – with a great midwife:
the director Olivia. It was a great delight to be with Olivia.
She modeled self-acceptance, self-sufficiency and a trueness of purpose –
making me feel that I could be that too.
Maeve O’Donnell
"Many times I have entered a new phase of my life
and not even realized it was happening. This time,
I knew it was happening simply by the fact
that I was taking the time out to do this ritual process.
I can’t tell you what to expect from Healing Theatre exactly,
but I can tell you to expect to be surprised.
You will be surprised at the cast of characters
living in your psyche. My own inner characters
were there waiting and ready to express themselves.
They were joyful, poignant and funny.
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What was really astonishing was how much
the audiences related to and empathized with them.
It was very powerful to affect a room full of people in this wayand receive the gratitude they showed.
My life can’t be the same now
because I am aware now of the roles I play.
On this journey, I learned to replace
worn out patterns with more authentic expression.
I know now how it feels to be in a group where it is safe
to blunder along or even fall down and still be celebrated,
where my emerging self was safe to grow
and make mistakes, change, and evolve.
This wasn’t an easy undertaking, but it was fun
and very enriching. If you’re looking
for something completely new and different (as I was)
to transform yourself, this is it."
Denise Ostler
(center in photos)