The PlayBuilders of Hawai'i
About PlayBuilders and Our Mission:
Our mission: PlayBuilders gathers and shares Hawaiʻi’s stories through community-based theatre, honoring lived experiences and helping build stronger relationships among Hawaiʻi’s culturally rich and diverse communities.
PlayBuilders of Hawaiʻi Theater Company is a Honolulu-based, roving, multiethnic community-based theatre company founded by Terri Madden in 2011.
For 15 years, PlayBuilders has collaborated with geographic communities such as Chinatown, Waipahu, and Wahiawā, as well as communities connected by culture, identity, and shared experiences. These have included people who have experienced houselessness, former foster youth, family caregivers, survivors of sexual assault, and members of Hawaiʻi’s LGBTQ+ communities.
Through story circles, interviews, workshops, rehearsals, and performances, community members help shape and tell stories rooted in their own lives, cultures, histories, and shared experiences.
What Is Community-Based Theatre?
Community-based theatre is created with, by, and for a particular community. It begins with listening.
Through story circles, interviews, and ongoing relationships, community members share lived experiences that may become part of an original play. The purpose is not simply to tell stories about a community, but to honor stories that come from within the community—and to invite community members to participate in telling those stories.
For PlayBuilders, community-based theatre is a careful, permission-based process rooted in trust, collaboration, and respect. Community members are not simply the subjects of the work. They help shape the stories being told and may participate in the production as performers and collaborators.
This process allows people to see their lives, cultures, and experiences reflected onstage. It also invites audiences to develop a deeper understanding of the people, histories, relationships, and issues that shape Hawaiʻi.
Our Process:
We begin by connecting with nonprofit organizations and community partners that have established, trusted relationships with the people involved. Together, we organize story circles where community members are invited to share their experiences in a supportive setting.
We then conduct one-on-one interviews with individuals who choose to share more deeply. With their permission at every stage, these stories are recorded, transcribed, and entrusted to a commissioned playwright. The playwright develops an original play in consultation with PlayBuilders and members of the participating community.
Once the script has been developed, PlayBuilders produces and stages the play. We cast community members alongside experienced actors, allowing people connected to the stories to participate directly in bringing them to life. Experienced theatre artists provide guidance and support throughout the rehearsal and production process.
This collaborative approach brings community knowledge and lived experience together with theatrical experience. Community participants can develop their skills, share the stage with experienced performers, and take an active role in telling stories rooted in their own communities.
Slow, Community-Based Theatre
PlayBuilders typically produces one original play every two to three years. Between productions, we remain actively engaged in community outreach, story circles, interviews, relationship-building, script development, rehearsals, and the careful work of listening.
Our Beginning: Terri Madden’s JourneyFounder Terri Madden earned her MFA in Theatre from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where she deepened her commitment to community-based storytelling.
After graduating, Terri returned to her Appalachian hometown of Clinchco, Virginia, to write and direct Clinchco: The Day After Payday. Developed from stories gathered from local residents, the play was performed at the Jettie Baker Center in Clintwood and received enthusiastic community support.
Terri later trained with Cornerstone Theater Company in California, a nationally recognized leader in community-engaged theatre. These experiences demonstrated how theatre could grow from the stories, knowledge, and participation of a community. They became the foundation for PlayBuilders’ relationship-centered, story-first approach.
Communities and ProductionsSince 2011, PlayBuilders has created original productions with geographic communities and with people connected by culture, identity, or shared experience.
Productions include:
PlayBuilders brings community participants together with experienced actors, playwrights, directors, designers, and other theatre artists. This process helps participants strengthen their relationships with one another and with the greater community while inviting audiences to encounter experiences and perspectives they might not otherwise know.
PlayBuilders has also cast actors with disabilities in roles not specifically written as disabled characters, reflecting our commitment to inclusive casting and meaningful participation.
Community Partnerships
PlayBuilders is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization guided by its Board of Directors and supported by a network of community partners, artists, advisors, and volunteers.
Partnerships are central to our work. We collaborate with organizations that already have trusted relationships with the communities involved. Our partners help us conduct outreach, organize and host story circles, identify community priorities, and approach sensitive experiences with care and cultural awareness.
Community partners have included:
Recognition and SupportPlayBuilders’ productions and artists have received multiple Poʻokela Awards from the Hawaiʻi State Theatre Council.
Our work has received support from:
Our Continuing Commitment
PlayBuilders believes that the people whose lives and communities inspire a play should have meaningful opportunities to participate in its creation and presentation.
Our work begins with listening and develops slowly through trust, permission, collaboration, and community participation. By bringing lived experience and theatre practice together, PlayBuilders creates productions that preserve cultural memory, illuminate shared concerns, strengthen relationships, and help people understand one another more deeply.
Our mission: PlayBuilders gathers and shares Hawaiʻi’s stories through community-based theatre, honoring lived experiences and helping build stronger relationships among Hawaiʻi’s culturally rich and diverse communities.
PlayBuilders of Hawaiʻi Theater Company is a Honolulu-based, roving, multiethnic community-based theatre company founded by Terri Madden in 2011.
For 15 years, PlayBuilders has collaborated with geographic communities such as Chinatown, Waipahu, and Wahiawā, as well as communities connected by culture, identity, and shared experiences. These have included people who have experienced houselessness, former foster youth, family caregivers, survivors of sexual assault, and members of Hawaiʻi’s LGBTQ+ communities.
Through story circles, interviews, workshops, rehearsals, and performances, community members help shape and tell stories rooted in their own lives, cultures, histories, and shared experiences.
What Is Community-Based Theatre?
Community-based theatre is created with, by, and for a particular community. It begins with listening.
Through story circles, interviews, and ongoing relationships, community members share lived experiences that may become part of an original play. The purpose is not simply to tell stories about a community, but to honor stories that come from within the community—and to invite community members to participate in telling those stories.
For PlayBuilders, community-based theatre is a careful, permission-based process rooted in trust, collaboration, and respect. Community members are not simply the subjects of the work. They help shape the stories being told and may participate in the production as performers and collaborators.
This process allows people to see their lives, cultures, and experiences reflected onstage. It also invites audiences to develop a deeper understanding of the people, histories, relationships, and issues that shape Hawaiʻi.
Our Process:
We begin by connecting with nonprofit organizations and community partners that have established, trusted relationships with the people involved. Together, we organize story circles where community members are invited to share their experiences in a supportive setting.
We then conduct one-on-one interviews with individuals who choose to share more deeply. With their permission at every stage, these stories are recorded, transcribed, and entrusted to a commissioned playwright. The playwright develops an original play in consultation with PlayBuilders and members of the participating community.
Once the script has been developed, PlayBuilders produces and stages the play. We cast community members alongside experienced actors, allowing people connected to the stories to participate directly in bringing them to life. Experienced theatre artists provide guidance and support throughout the rehearsal and production process.
This collaborative approach brings community knowledge and lived experience together with theatrical experience. Community participants can develop their skills, share the stage with experienced performers, and take an active role in telling stories rooted in their own communities.
Slow, Community-Based Theatre
PlayBuilders typically produces one original play every two to three years. Between productions, we remain actively engaged in community outreach, story circles, interviews, relationship-building, script development, rehearsals, and the careful work of listening.
Our Beginning: Terri Madden’s JourneyFounder Terri Madden earned her MFA in Theatre from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where she deepened her commitment to community-based storytelling.
After graduating, Terri returned to her Appalachian hometown of Clinchco, Virginia, to write and direct Clinchco: The Day After Payday. Developed from stories gathered from local residents, the play was performed at the Jettie Baker Center in Clintwood and received enthusiastic community support.
Terri later trained with Cornerstone Theater Company in California, a nationally recognized leader in community-engaged theatre. These experiences demonstrated how theatre could grow from the stories, knowledge, and participation of a community. They became the foundation for PlayBuilders’ relationship-centered, story-first approach.
Communities and ProductionsSince 2011, PlayBuilders has created original productions with geographic communities and with people connected by culture, identity, or shared experience.
Productions include:
- Wahiawā: Wahiawā Remembah When
- Waipahu: The Waipahu Project
- Honolulu’s Chinatown: Someone Else’s Slippahs: Chinatown
- People who have experienced houselessness: Houseless in Paradise
- Family caregivers: The Super Executive Aunties of the Mālama the Caregivers Collective
- Honolulu’s LGBTQ+ communities: Yes, I Am: Stories from Honolulu’s LGBTQ+ Community and Yes, I Am: Leeward Edition
- Survivors of sexual assault: #MeToo Survivors Circle
- Former foster youth: Dragonfly: The Story of a Young Local Girl’s Journey Through Foster Care
- Descendants of Protestant missionaries to Hawaiʻi: Open Your Hearts Wide
PlayBuilders brings community participants together with experienced actors, playwrights, directors, designers, and other theatre artists. This process helps participants strengthen their relationships with one another and with the greater community while inviting audiences to encounter experiences and perspectives they might not otherwise know.
PlayBuilders has also cast actors with disabilities in roles not specifically written as disabled characters, reflecting our commitment to inclusive casting and meaningful participation.
Community Partnerships
PlayBuilders is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization guided by its Board of Directors and supported by a network of community partners, artists, advisors, and volunteers.
Partnerships are central to our work. We collaborate with organizations that already have trusted relationships with the communities involved. Our partners help us conduct outreach, organize and host story circles, identify community priorities, and approach sensitive experiences with care and cultural awareness.
Community partners have included:
- Catholic Charities Hawaiʻi’s Nā ʻOhana Pulāma Program
- Child & Family Service
- Family Programs Hawaiʻi
- Hawaiʻi Coalition Against Domestic Violence
- Hawaiʻi Foster Youth Coalition
- Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives
- Institute for Human Services
- Okinawa Hawaiʻi United Association
- PAʻI Foundation
Recognition and SupportPlayBuilders’ productions and artists have received multiple Poʻokela Awards from the Hawaiʻi State Theatre Council.
Our work has received support from:
- Atherton Family Foundation
- Cooke Foundation
- Geist Foundation
- Hawaiʻi Community Foundation
- Hawaiʻi Council for the Humanities, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Hawaiʻi People’s Fund
- National Endowment for the Arts
Our Continuing Commitment
PlayBuilders believes that the people whose lives and communities inspire a play should have meaningful opportunities to participate in its creation and presentation.
Our work begins with listening and develops slowly through trust, permission, collaboration, and community participation. By bringing lived experience and theatre practice together, PlayBuilders creates productions that preserve cultural memory, illuminate shared concerns, strengthen relationships, and help people understand one another more deeply.
