CMU School of Drama


Monday, September 09, 2013

PigPen Theatre Company takes collaboration to a whole new level

Chicago Sun-Times: In 2008, 14 students in the highly selective acting program of Carnegie Mellon University’s drama school gathered for a class in “Collaboration” taught by Stuart Carden.
The class was designed to provide a creative contrast to the strict conservatory-style training of the school’s program. As Carden explained: “It gave these students an opportunity to mine their internal life in a way that went beyond realism. It was all about storytelling, dealing with challenging texts and finding a way to work as an ensemble.”

1 comment:

Tiomthy S said...

I really enjoyed this article. I have always appreciated articles that explore the motivation that artists have behind their creative processes. I find the process behind PigPen to be a unique and amazing one. Having seen several of their productions, I find their way of telling stories something that no one has done in quite this way before. One issue I have with this article is the fact that they said the Collaboration class was a break from the strict control of the CMU conservatory classes. CMU is nothing like that. Every process we have is full of collaboration and discussion of themes and styles and what is best to propel the meaning of the story. I think the creativeness was not born out of spite for the strict conservatory style training, but was rather a product of it. The spectacular talents of PigPen were something the actors all brought to the table. Their ability to hone it into a cohesive, witty, and artistically brilliant show was something they learned through the processes at CMU.