CMU School of Drama


Thursday, February 27, 2014

Ensembles: Making and Paying for the Art

HowlRound: “Model the Movement,” Theatre Communications Group’s 2012 slogan, was stuck in my head for a long time. In particular it was the word “Model” that I couldn’t shake. At the conference I found myself surrounded by all kinds of theaters large and small, established and fringe, who followed a business or artistic model. But it was at the Network of Ensemble Theatres breakfast where I met some that said, “there is no model for what we’re doing.”
A light bulb was illuminated. Sometimes you just need someone to state the obvious.

2 comments:

AnnaAzizzyRosati said...

Theater, and art in general, is such a tricky business. It's difficult to walk the line between creative integrity and staying true to the art, and making enough money to make art in the first place. After school, we will all have to choose what sort of theater we want to work for, that is if we choose to stay with theater. This article drew a pretty clear distinction between traditional and non-traditional theaters. Personally, it seems more exciting to be a part of a non-traditional theater company, as the concepts and goals are always growing and developing. However, the job stability and lack of variability of a traditional theater is probably very nice too. It makes me even more interested and excited to see where all of our careers will take us!

Unknown said...

Recently in Foundations II we talked about the first modern director, the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. One thing he was known for was working with huge ensembles of hundreds of people, all of which had an important planned out role with lines or certain movements. The idea of directing this much action is insane but it also would be extremely cost prohibitive today. Diverging from this definition of ensemble theatre, modern ensemble theatre seems to mean more how a work is created. I absolutely love the idea of non-traditional theatre and it is something I have explored the past year. I am currently studying The Laramie Project and Moises Kaufman's Moment Work with Tectonic Theatre Project. I believe non-traditional and interactive theatre is incredible. Today I saw a lecture about Denver Theatre Center's (where Laramie was first performed!) Off Center @ The Jones organization which is producing interactive non-traditional theatre to apply to a younger audience and they're doing many things that are non-traditional. I look forward to seeing later installments of this article series.