LYNN JOHNSON
ALBUQUERQUE 2025 - 2026
Lynn Johnson (she/her) is a theater maker, entrepreneur, and cultural strategist who has spent the last 30+ years amplifying the voices of folx who have been historically silenced. Along with her wife, Allison Kenny (Artistic Director), Lynn is the co-founder and Executive Director of High Desert Playback, a company that makes theater for social change in New Mexico and beyond. Their multiracial, queer + trans-centered ensemble uses playback theatre and devised performance to mobilize and amplify social issues toward collective liberation. As a life-long artist, Lynn’s mission has always been to create spaces for deep and radical belonging for both audiences and performers. Right after her graduation from Northwestern University, she developed a process of making plays with both actors and non-actors that blend performers’ real life experiences with outside documentary sources. Johnson has worked as a director, actor, and teaching artist with communities of all ages in Chicago, Boston, North Carolina, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Before moving to Albuquerque in 2020, Johnson and Kenny ran a well-loved program in Oakland called Go Girls!, where girls and gender non-conforming kids practice social-emotional skills through the creation of original plays.
Community project
Lynn is working with High Desert Playback and Albuquerque Public Access (Channel 27) to mobilize and amplify progressive social issues at scale. High Desert Playback, New Mexico’s first professional Playback Theatre company, is on a mission to use Playback to ignite community dialogue, cultural healing, and collective liberation. Playback Theatre is an improvisational art form where audience members share real-life stories and performers play them back on the spot. At a time when our LGBTQ+ community is under attack, this project aims to create a safe, virtual, and accessible space for folks to gather and organize around the pressing issues facing LGBTQ+ folks around the country. The project will launch with three pilot episodes, each centering the lived experiences of New Mexico’s LGBTQ+ community in collaboration with local nonprofit partners and their stakeholders. Performing Playback Theatre on TV is a new opportunity to increase exposure and make the work more accessible while still maintaining the intimacy of the art form. The performers will transform their stories into improvised theatrical pieces on camera, offering a powerful mix of visibility, empathy, and creativity.
Community partner
High Desert Playback makes theater for social change in New Mexico and beyond.
Our multiracial, queer + trans-centered ensemble uses the art of Playback Theatre to mobilize and amplify social issues through community outreach, engagement, dialogue, and celebration.