CMU School of Drama


Saturday, November 22, 2014

All or Nothing: The Life of an Improbable Ensemble

HowlRound: A few years ago at the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) Conference, I kept finding myself in the same conversation.

Them: (looking at my nametag) What’s Strange Attractor?

Me: It’s a devising company I run. We create original shows in Providence, Rhode Island, Philadelphia, and Juneau, Alaska.

Them: Wow. That’s a cool model!

1 comment:

Adelaide Zhang said...

Strange Attractor has a really incredible method of collaboration. To me, it is much more interesting to have the input of several different minds, and to allow the needs of the piece itself to dictate roles instead of following the traditional model. The four members of the group are pretty lucky to have found each other - it doesn't seem too often that people in such distant places mesh well enough that they look for reasons to overcome the distance and work together. It's also really interesting to see the community concerns that they have as a result of their geographic spread; it's not something that a standard company really thinks about aside from meeting the needs of their specific community.