Players Resource Center

Universal characters and story structures we are born with — like instinct. We meet them in stories and dreams, and the best theatre games activate them. Every wayfarer’s journey follows one story.

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How Players are assigned roles — Versatile Casting (random, rotating) vs Stable Casting (same role throughout). DT:FC favors Versatile Casting to build every competency and give every Player a full range of experience.

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How bonded a group is right now — the action or fact of forming a united whole. Every game is rated Low, Medium, or High — matching game to group cohesion is the facilitator’s core skill.

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A combination of knowledge, skills, abilities, behaviors, and experience that enable someone to be authentic and effective. Broader than skill — it includes knowing when and how to apply ability in real situations.

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The ongoing practice of observing each Player’s readiness — physical, emotional, and social — so the Facilitator can adapt the game, the grouping, or the pace in real time.

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Our birthright as human beings — adaptive, innovative, or both. DT:FC exists to put creative tools into the hands of teachers and helping professionals so everyone can celebrate and reclaim their creativity.

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Using theatre techniques to develop well-rounded and whole human beings fearless in their creativity — a fun, vital, fulfilling intersection of education and the arts.

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Facilitation is holding space for authentic creative risk-taking — guiding the process while trusting players to discover their own artistic truth.

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The belief that you have the talent, intelligence, intuition, and passion to solve any creative challenge. Coined by Roger Holzberg, it starts with ‘Say Yes, and…’ — and the five DT:FC competencies are how you build it.

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The visual symbols used across DT:FC to name the small essential concepts of the work — a picture, a name, and a definition together.

The non-written ancestral inheritance of story and knowledge passed down through the Four R’s: Rhythm, Rhyme, Resonance, and Repetition. Theatre and storytelling live inside this tradition.

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The DT:FC standard for spoken and written language: every word earns its place (Sparse) and every line lands with clear meaning and imagery (Resonant). Less is more.

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The facilitator’s kit — starting with open space and a drum, and expanding to partner-selection cards, music sources, and props. Most theatre games need only imagination and a room.

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The DT:FC term for everyone who participates in a theatre game — never 'actors.' The word signals that all participants are active creators, regardless of experience, age, or ability.

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The spine of a DT:FC play — myth-faithful, elongated through language and action, built on balanced constraints that keep every Player working and the story alive for any audience.

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One of the Four R’s of Oral Tradition — and a cornerstone of DT:FC scripts. Repetition of incidents, words and phrases, and concepts is not a mistake; it is a memory and meaning-making tool.

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The ability to recover from or adjust quickly to change, difficulty, or adversity. In DT:FC, resilience means replacing 'failure' with 'learning' — and getting up to explore a different direction.

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A Stage is the space Players occupy during a performance — and its shape (Proscenium, Arena, Thrust, or found space) determines how the audience sees, hears, and connects with the play.

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An action-packed, performance-based method for individual and group development — a delivery vehicle for one or more of the five DT:FC competencies.

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The Theatre-Games category that trains ear, breath, and diction — the warmup foundation for taking on Shakespeare’s language.

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The physical, psychological, and emotional readiness each player brings — and builds — at the start of a session. Warmup games replace individual preoccupations with a shared group focus.

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