Setting the Stage for a New Regional Theater

HowlRound: The budding identity of American regional theater is fresh ensembles creating devised work. Restructuring the conventions of traditional venues or reimagining the presentation of performance, these companies, such as Progress Theatre (Houston, TX), New Paradise Laboratories (Philadelphia, PA), Nature Theater of Oklahoma (Long Island City, NY), or Teo Castellanos D-Projects (Miami, FL), are breaking the proscenium and thrusting their work out towards the audience. They’re creating new structures of collaboration, story, casting, touring, outreach, and inreach. Working collaboratively, they have returned to the initial regional theater acting company model, where, as Zelda Fichandler once noted, actors have a home of artists that are rooted in a community. And like Fichandler’s early Arena Stage or Nina Vance’s early Alley Theatre, these new companies—while still being rooted in their respective homes—exchange their work with other communities across the country, and even the world.