With the aim of promoting the use of PRA (which, at the time, stood for participatory rapid appraisal) in forestry projects, the first section of this paper took the novel format of a three-act play to recount the experiences of two fictional foresters as they tried first a questionnaire survey and then a series of PRA exercises to gather the same information. The philosophy and techniques of PRA introduced in the play were then presented more formally in an appendix, along with a list of useful literature and contacts.