The Contemporary Ensemble

Interviews with theatre-makers

Questions of ensemble – what it is, how it works – are both inherent to a

variety of Western theatre traditions, and re-emerging and evolving in
striking new ways in the twenty-first century. The Contemporary Ensemble
draws together an unprecedented range of original interviews with world-
renowned theatre-makers in order to directly address both the former and
latter concerns. Reflecting on ‘the ensemble way of working’ within this
major new resource are figures including:

Michael Boyd, Yuri Butusov, Lyn Gardner, Elizabeth LeCompte,

Phelim McDermott, Emma Rice, Adriano Shaplin, Max Stafford-
Clark, and Hermann Wündrich;

representing companies including:

The Berliner Ensemble, Kneehigh Theatre, The Neo-Futurists,

Ontroerend Goed, Out of Joint, The Riot Group, The RSC, The
Satirikon Theatre, Shadow Casters, Song of the Goat, and The
Wooster Group.

All twenty-two interviews were conducted especially for the collection,

and draw upon the author’s rich background working as scholar, educator
and dramaturg with a variety of ensembles. The resulting compendium
radically re-situates the ensemble in the context of globalisation, higher
education and simplistic understandings of ‘text-based’ and ‘devised’
theatre practice, and traces a compelling new line through the contem-
porary theatre landscape.

Duška Radosavljević is a Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at the

University of Kent, UK. She has previously worked as the Dramaturg
at Northern Stage, education practitioner at the Royal Shakespeare
Company and theatre critic for The Stage newspaper.
This page intentionally left blank
The Contemporary
Ensemble
Interviews with theatre-makers

Edited by
Duška Radosavljević
First published 2013
by Routledge
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Ó 2013 Duška Radosavljević
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Contents

Acknowledgements viii
Preface x

Introduction 1

Themes table 27

PART I
Redefinitions of ensemble 31

1 A ‘contingent community’ in a free market

economy 33
MICHAEL BOYD (Royal Shakespeare Company)

2 Between the East and the West today 42

GABOR TOMPA (Hungarian Theatre of Cluj)

3 How the Berliner Ensemble changes with time 48

HERMANN WÜNDRICH (Berliner Ensemble)

4 Directing as an art of composition 56

YURI BUTUSOV (guest director, Satirikon Theatre)

5 A tried and tested ensemble methodology 63

MAX STAFFORD-CLARK (Out of Joint)

6 ‘A group of people around a place’ 72

ELIZABETH LECOMPTE (The Wooster Group)
vi Contents
7 On regional theatre-making 81
LYN GARDNER (The Guardian)

PART II
Working processes 87

8 Beyond words 89
ANTON ADASSINSKY AND ELENA YAROVAYA (Derevo)

9 From a community to the West End 98

EMMA RICE (Kneehigh Theatre)

10 On being an ensemble actor in the UK 109

JOANNA HOLDEN (freelance actor, Northern Stage, Kneehigh,
Cirque du Soleil)

11 An actor’s journey between Wales and Wroclaw 116

IAN MORGAN (Song of the Goat)

12 ‘Comic figures repurposed’ 126

DAN ROTHENBERG (Pig Iron)

13 Ensemble as a musical ‘intersubjective unit’ 138

ADRIANO SHAPLIN (The Riot Group)

14 Working together in Northern Ireland 151

HANNA SLÄTTNE (Tinderbox Theatre)

15 On writing and performance in an ensemble 159

ALEXANDER KELLY (Third Angel) AND CHRIS THORPE
(Unlimited Theatre)

PART III
Ensemble and the audience 173

16 Sharing the experience of imagination 175

MIKE ALFREDS (Shared Experience, Method and Madness)
 Contents vii
17 An interactive ensemble 187
GREG ALLEN (The Neo-Futurists)

18 ‘Creating safe emergencies’ 199

PHELIM M C DERMOTT (Improbable)

19 The dramaturgy of long-term cross-cultural

collaboration 214
PETER ECKERSALL (Not Yet It’s Difficult)

20 Ensemble as a tool of civic engagement 225

KATARINA PEJOVIĆ AND BORIS BAKAL (Shadow Casters)

21 On courting the audience 243

DAVID BAUWENS, ALEXANDER DEVRIENDT AND
JOERI SMET (Ontroerend Goed)

22 Towards a global ensemble 260

RICHARD JORDAN (Richard Jordan Productions)

Index 271
Acknowledgements

My thanks are due to all the individuals who agreed to be interviewed for
this project and to their various collaborators and assistants who helped
to set up the meetings and, in some cases, proof the transcripts. In addi-
tion to the interviewees, I’d like to thank Charlotte Bond (Kneehigh),
Jane Tassell (RSC), Barney Norris and Stella Feehly (Out of Joint), Jason
Gray Platt (The Wooster Group), Anastasia Razumovskaya and Polina
Zhezhenova (MHAT School), the Edinburgh International Festival Press
Office and the Interferences International Theatre Festival Cluj; David
Barnett (University of Sussex) for facilitating contact with the Berliner
Ensemble, and John Britton (Duende) for making me part of his own
ensemble project; Anastasia Razumovskaya and Martin Schnabl for their
help with translation, as well as to Thomas Colley for his transcription
services. Special thanks to Dr George Rodosthenous for all his support in
many different ways, as well as Professor Paul Allain, Dr Bryce Lease and
Miloš Jakovljević for close reading and editorial suggestions on selected
sections of the book. My work has also benefited from Nick Awde’s eagle
eye whose own project Solo Show: The Creation of the One-Person Play in
British Theatre (London: Desert Hearts, 2013) is a cousin of this book
through the Edinburgh family line.
Due to various circumstances, some of the interviews did not take place
or just never made it to the final draft of the book, but I am grateful to
Joseph Alford (Theatre O), Anne Bogart (SITI Theatre), Erica Daniels
and Paul Miller (Steppenwolf Theatre Company), Lin Hixon (ex-Goat
Island; Every House Has a Door), movement director Natalia Fedorova
(ex-MHAT), writer and actor Tim Crouch and producer Michael
Redington for their time, preliminary discussions and correspondence on
the subject.
I was very lucky to have been able to gain access to various perfor-
mances discussed in this volume with thanks to: Phelim McDermott for a
memorable evening at the Metropolitan Opera House; Gabor Tompa for
 Acknowledgements ix
inviting me to the Interferences Festival Cluj 2010; Patrice Pavis for let-
ting me have his ticket to Shadow Casters’ sold out performance of
Vacation from History; Jonathan Meth and members of The Fence for
introducing me to various wonders of European theatre; Paul Miller for a
ticket to The March at Steppenwolf; Ivona Ataljević and her family for
their hospitality in Chicago; Suzanne Worthington for countless dis-
counted RSC tickets, cups of tea and inspiring conversations; David
Bauwens for ensuring entry into various Ontorerend Goed performances;
Rachel Chavkin (TEAM), Adriano Shaplin and Dan Rothenberg for let-
ting me see recordings of their work; the Edinburgh International Festival
Press Office and The Fringe Press Office for their help; and to The Stage
newspaper for the privilege of bearing its press accreditation.
Special thanks to the editors of the Journal of Adaptation in Film and
Performance Katja Krebs and Richard Hand for their support and colla-
boration in publishing some of this research and allowing me to reprint
the interview with Emma Rice.
I owe the initial inspiration for this book to Alan Lyddiard and
Michael Boyd, both of whose respective ensemble ways of working are in
their own ways always coupled with extraordinary humanity and generos-
ity of spirit. In addition, I would like to thank my colleagues at The Stage
and the University of Kent for insightful exchanges over the years. Many
thanks to Talia Rodgers for her enthusiasm and suggestions, for the edi-
torial support of her team at Routledge and of Richard Cook at Book
Now. The Routledge readers’ reports from Gareth White, Jackie Smart,
Sara Jane Bailes, Jane Goodall, David Roesner and Kate Craddock have
been particularly helpful in the development of this project and I am
grateful to them too.
Elements of this work have been supported by research funding at the
University of Kent, Professor Paul Allain’s Leverhulme-funded ‘Tradition
and Innovation: Britain/Russia Training for Performance’ project, and,
crucially, by an AHRC Fellowship, for which I am also indebted to var-
ious anonymous readers and panellists whose enthusiasm has made this
possible.
Finally thank you to the ensemble of all my close friends and relatives,
and especially to ‘the Dragons’, without whom, I wouldn’t even be here.
Postscript
As this book goes into print, two of its chapters have also been made
available in audio-visual form in the Routledge Performance Archive
(RPA): an audio recording of the interview with Mike Alfreds and a
video recording of the interview with Adriano Shaplin. Please see www.
routledgeperformancearchive.com for more information.
Preface

It may seem inappropriate for a book about ensembles to open with a

personal statement about the editor’s singular aims and her particular
circumstances that lead her into this research. However, I feel compelled
to outline how this book has emerged from very real problems, ideas and
challenges I have encountered in my interactions with various theatre-
makers, critics, teachers and students of theatre, ever since my own
student days in the UK in the mid-1990s.
Of partial significance here is my own cultural background as a person
who was brought up in a collectivist atmosphere of a former socialist
country – Yugoslavia – a place that was, thanks to its liberal form of
socialism during the Cold War, often defined as ‘the best of both worlds’.
The Cambridge Guide to World Theatre (Cambridge University Press,
1988, p. 1093) pointed out the significance of the Belgrade International
Theatre Festival (BITEF) ‘which has since 1967 featured the most impor-
tant avant-garde works from all over the world’. Nevertheless, the country’s
own theatre production carried an emphasis on the so-called ‘dramatic
theatre’ and was heavily influenced by the German and Russian repertory
theatre models which customarily included resident ensembles.
My first degree in Theatre Studies at the University of Huddersfield
featured a healthy mix of Grotowski-influenced physical theatre, performance
studies, drama and theatre history without an explicit acknowledgement of
any tensions that might have historically existed between various paradigms
of the study of theatre and performance, thus indicating that by the mid-
1990s those battles might have been laid to rest, ushering in a more layered
understanding of the field, whatever its name might be. As an example of this,
I recall that in our first year we were taken to see Forced Entertainment,
Trestle Theatre, the Wrestling School and the multi-award winning TV actor
Warren Mitchell as King Lear, as part of one and the same course.
Changes were afoot within the theatre sector itself. By the time I
joined The Stage newspaper’s Edinburgh Reviewing team in 1998, a new
 Preface xi
category of the annual Acting Excellence Awards was being added to the
already-existing Best Actor and Best Actress – the Best Ensemble Award.
Incidentally, Howard Goorney of the Theatre Workshop was one of the
members of the Stage Awards judging panel in those years. Since 1998,
nominees in this category have included Steven Berkoff’s East Produc-
tions, Grid Iron, Trestle Theatre, Kaos, Theatre O, the Riot Group, but
also more recently Traverse Theatre, National Theatre of Scotland, Song
of the Goat and Ontroerend Goed – indicating an increasingly diversified
understanding of the term ‘ensemble’. Our award-judging discussions in
this category have often revolved around two questions: ‘Are all of the
individual performances in the ensemble of award-winning quality?’ and
‘To what extent is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?’. As it
happens, I have been dealing with these and a number of other questions
concerning ensemble throughout most of the rest of my career.
From 2002 to 2005 I was employed as the Dramaturg at Northern Stage
in Newcastle-upon-Tyne which, under the leadership of Alan Lyddiard,
had been trying desperately to survive as a regional ensemble company ever
since 1998. A lot of my time and energy was invested in promoting the
values of the ensemble way of working, without always fully understanding
the odds which were stacked against it and just how out of place – culturally
and locally – this mode of working had been. It was the Equity and the
Directors’ Guild of Great Britain (DGGB) Conference on Ensemble
Theatre at the Barbican on 24 November 2004 that opened my eyes to this.
In a characteristically inspiring keynote speech, Michael Boyd, the then
newly appointed Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, out-
lined his vision for the company as an ensemble. This proved to be enough
to lure me into the RSC, when Alan Lyddiard abruptly resigned from his
position at the helm of Northern Stage in January 2005. For a year – which
also saw a year-long Complete Works Festival – I had an opportunity
to witness from the inside the complexities associated with imbuing
a world-renowned national institution with the spirit of togetherness,
experimentation and community.
Having finally returned to academia, I find myself asking these ques-
tions: What is meant by the ‘ensemble way of working’ in the twenty-first
century? What advantages and problems are entailed therein? How does
the contemporary ensemble fit with the heritage of the twentieth century,
and how does it proceed forward?
Both as a practitioner and researcher, I am interested in how the
ensemble way of working alters the theatre-making process by comparison
to the process that exists between a number of otherwise-assembled free-
lance artists working on a project for five to eight weeks – including the
run – and then going their separate ways. In addition, as a pedagogue,
xii Preface
I am confronted with an increasing trend of groups of young people gradu-
ating from drama and theatre courses together and going on to become
successful ensemble companies, rather than seeking out individual careers.
This requires recognition in terms of how we work as educators, but
also in terms of how it has changed and continues to change the current
theatre landscape.
Following the end of Michael Boyd’s artistic directorship of the RSC in
2012, this book may come out in the aftermath of one significant ensem-
ble project in the UK. However, I hope that this collection, featuring an
ensemble of distinct international voices testifying to the virtues of colla-
borative ways of working, will continue to inspire new similar ventures. It
is therefore dedicated to the ensembles of the future.

Duška Radosavljević
Canterbury, April 2012
Introduction

I also get very upset when I see a production where the only pulse beating
is that of the director, whereas the other thirty people who are on the
stage may also have a beating pulse, and these pulses united are not just
thirty pulses, they are much, much more. It’s like the notion of critical
mass in physics, where this mass comes to a certain point and there is an
explosion.
(Lev Dodin in Delgado and Heritage 1996: 74)

You can’t push everyone to be, you know, magnesium sulphate. There
will never be two of the same element – so the fusion is unique. [ . . . ]
Sometimes you get explosions!
(Lloyd Newson in Tushingham 1994:51)

On face value, one may struggle to find much aesthetic common ground
between the London-based dance theatre company DV8 and the Maly
Theatre from St Petersburg, renowned for its meticulous renditions of
famous literary classics. The way that their respective leaders, Lloyd
Newson and Lev Dodin, both serendipitously resort to the scientific ana-
logy of an increase and sudden release of considerable energy is, however,
indicative of a commitment that each of those directors has to a particular
way of working – namely, a group of individuals working together.
Although these two companies are sadly not featured in this collection,
their underlying ethos is – as well as the wide-reaching capacity of the
term ‘ensemble’, illustrated by the synergy provided between the two
quotes above.
Part of the purpose of this introduction is to engage with a definition of
terms, their historical development, and the choice of vocabulary for this
particular volume. It is worth briefly foregrounding here the online
Oxford Dictionary’s designation of the term ‘ensemble’ as originating
from the Middle English adverb (via French and Latin) meaning ‘at the
2 Introduction
same time’. The adverbial aspect of this usage emphasises a process rather
than a fixed state, making it particularly applicable in the context of thea-
tre-making. In addition, the primary meaning of the noun ‘ensemble’ as
we use it today – to mean ‘a group of musicians, actors or dancers who per-
form together’ – is augmented by a more conceptual use: ‘a group of items
viewed as a whole, rather than individually’.1 As suggested by Dodin
above, advocates of the ensemble way of working very often emphasise
the notion of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.
The following discussion is therefore intended to contextualise the col-
lection of interviews presented in the volume in four specific ways. First, it
will provide some historical and theoretical frameworks within which to
begin engaging with potential taxonomies, methodologies and types of
ensembles. This will serve to raise particular questions and problems that
the concluding analysis of the empirical research will seek to address to
some extent, while also framing the enclosed interviews. Second, it will
define the key terms chosen for the title of this book: ‘contemporary’,
‘ensemble’ and ‘theatre-maker’. Further it will explain the criteria for selec-
tion of the subjects of these interviews, the resulting formats of the conver-
sations, and the overarching organisational principles of their layout.
Wishing to leave enough space for the reader’s own conclusions, the final
section will tease out some preliminary areas of insight gained through the
field research, in response to the initial questions raised concerning the
definition of the ensemble way of working in the twenty-first century.

Histories, issues and taxonomies

Combing through histories of Western theatre, one might come across
the use of the term ‘ensemble’ in relation to theatre only as late as the
nineteenth century, and specifically the Meiningen Ensemble. Having
toured Europe extensively between 1874 and 1890, the Meiningen
Ensemble is often hailed as a precursor to and an influence on both André
Antoine’s Théâtre Libre (1887–1896) and Konstantin Stanislavsky’s
Moscow Art Theatre (1897 to present). Prior to the nineteenth century,
groups of actors working together are often referred to as companies (e.g.
King’s Men) or troupes (e.g. commedia dell’ arte). The semantic choice of
denominators by various writers is probably unconscious, but this is what
Michael Booth highlights as the distinguishing characteristic of the Duke
Saxe-Meiningen’s aesthetic approach:

Georg laid great stress on ensemble; he was opposed to the star system
and required leading actors in one production to take minor roles and
even walk on in another, if necessary. Lengthy rehearsal periods also
 Introduction 3
ensured perfection of the crowd scenes, which much impressed
European reviewers and theatre people.
(Booth 1997: 336)

The use of the term ensemble in this context seems to imply a lack of the
hierarchy that is perhaps inherent to acting companies led by actor man-
agers in the nineteenth century and the allocation of roles on the basis of
seniority. Thus the organising structure of the ensemble implies that the
actor’s contribution is closer to that of a musician – which is also where
the term ensemble is found more frequently.
In addition to the principle of equal attention being extended to all
minor parts in a play or towards individuals within crowd scenes, as illu-
strated by the Meiningen Ensemble, Stanislavsky’s embracing of the
ensemble way of working is also understood to be linked to his interest
in training as an indispensable part of the actor’s life in theatre. In
Chapter 10 of An Actor Prepares, for example, Stanislavsky outlines the
importance of ‘communion’ between actors, or ‘a sincere effort to
exchange living human feelings with [each] other’ (Stanislavski 2006
[1937]: 205). Stanislavsky’s contemporary, the director Theodore
Komisarjevsky, described the achievement of this kind of quality in per-
formance as ground-breaking, and in Magarshack’s quotation below, the
term ‘ensemble’ – which thus acquires another level of meaning – is used
to denote it:

It is the method of the formulation of an inner ensemble, based on

inner communication, that was Stanislavsky’s greatest discovery, and
in the Moscow Art Theatre we saw and felt such an ensemble for the
first time.
(Komisarjevsky quoted in Magarshack 1973 [1950]: 84)

Simon Shepherd traces the first calls for ensemble in Britain back to 1904
and the early plans for the National Theatre which would ‘establish a
company of performers for at least three years’ (Shepherd 2009: 65).
Proponents of this project over the next 60 years, and those in Britain
who believed in the art rather than the business model of theatre which
had dominated the British stage in the nineteenth century,2 repeatedly
looked to Europe for inspiration and for evidence to support their argu-
ments for greater subsidy. Of particular impact was the visit in 1935 of
Michel Saint-Denis with his Compagnie des Quinze, which Gielgud
described as one of ‘the most perfect examples of teamwork ever presented
in London’ (in Shepherd 2009: 68). This subsequently led to Saint-Denis’
ensemble-oriented pedagogical experiments in London with George
4 Introduction
Devine through the London Theatre Studio in the 1930s and Bristol Old
Vic after World War Two.
Meanwhile in New York, in his account of the formation in 1931 of the
Group Theatre collective, Harold Clurman describes a situation that may
not have been dissimilar to the one that took place in Moscow in 1897,
when Nemirovich-Danchenko and Konstantin Stanislavsky founded the
Moscow Art Theatre. Two men, Clurman and Lee Strasberg – later
joined by the producer Cheryl Crawford – with distinct but compatible
sets of skills and a shared passion for raising quality standards, arrived at a
decisive conclusion: continued collaboration and growth of a group of
artists together, relieved of the pressures of the market economy, was a
required necessity. Having produced such artists as Elia Kazan, Stella
Adler, Clifford Odets, Sanford Meisner and Morris Carnovsky, the Group
Theatre could be seen to have eventually contributed more to the film
industry than to the reinvention of the American theatre scene. The rea-
sons for the limited influence of its collective model of working on other
theatre artists in the United States before the 1960s might be sought in
the nature of US arts funding, and historical factors including World War
Two and, later, Senator McCarthy’s anti-communism. However, by the
1960s, this had changed radically, with the growing prominence of
experimental companies such as the Living Theatre (which had started in
1947), the Open Theatre and the Performance Group.
The term ‘ensemble’ as a mode of theatre-making probably began to
catch on in the English-speaking world as a result of another influential
guest appearance in London – that of the Berliner Ensemble in 1956.
According to Michael Billington, this event was one of the two in the
‘pivotal year’ (Billington 2007: 93) that had a long-term effect on British
Theatre as a whole.3 The other was the opening of the English Stage
Company at the Royal Court with the premiere of Look Back in Anger by
John Osborne. Its founder, George Devine, and the founder of the Royal
Shakespeare Company, Peter Hall, did fall under the spell of Brecht’s
company, but they were not the only ones. Joan Littlewood, aligned with
Brecht ideologically as well as aesthetically, was the first in England to
actually direct and star in a professional production of Brecht’s play
Mother Courage, also in 1956.
Littlewood is another name often invoked in relation to the ensemble
way of working, particularly in the British context. According to Nadine
Holdsworth, throughout her career, which spanned 1945–1975, Littlewood
‘maintained faith in the centrality of a permanent creative ensemble, the
‘‘composite mind’’ engaged in a cooperative sharing of ideas, skills and
creativity’ (Holdsworth 2006: 49). This was rooted in Littlewood’s work-
ing class allegiances, her interest in agit-prop before World War Two, and
 Introduction 5
active engagement with popular forms of entertainment as well as the clas-
sics. Holdsworth highlights the problem of the evolving ‘cult of Joan’
(2006: 24) which ensued with her growing success in the mid-to-late
1950s. In addition, in 1955, her life partner and Theatre Workshop mem-
ber Gerry Raffles got enough money to acquire their base, the Theatre
Royal Stratford East, which shifted the organisational structure from a col-
lective of equal individuals to an entity with a defined leadership – Raffles
as business manager and Littlewood as an artistic director who made reper-
toire-related decisions.
This notion of a prominent leader being associated with an ensemble
was by no means exclusive to Theatre Workshop as a company. In fact, it
is a story that repeats case after case throughout the twentieth century:
Jerzy Grotowski’s Teatr Laboratorium, Ariane Mnouchkine’s Théâtre du
Soleil, Eugenio Barba’s Odin Teatret, Richard Schechner’s Performance
Group, Max Stafford-Clark’s Joint Stock, Anne Bogart’s SITI Company.4
In contrast to this, however, various directors have been eager to acknow-
ledge their ensemble members as co-authors. In an unpublished handout
in English, believed to have been distributed during the Theatre
Laboratorium’s visit to New York in 1969, Jerzy Grotowski stated:

Without in any way wishing to give an impression of mock modesty,

I must stress that in the end I am not the author of our productions,
or at any rate, not the only one. I am not somebody who has devised
the whole show by himself, set up all the roles in advance, planned
the décor, arranged the lighting and designed the costumes.
‘‘Grotowski’’ is not a one-man band. [ . . . ] My name is, in fact, only
there as a symbol of a group and its work in which are fused all the
efforts of my associates. And these efforts are not a matter of colla-
boration pure and simple: they amount to creation.
(Grotowski n.d., original emphasis)5

In the Delgado and Rebellato’s 2010 volume on Contemporary European

Theatre Directors, both Stephen Knapper and Lourdes Orozco seem to
identify a move from collective creation to director-led decision making
as a more recent development. Orozco provides the example of La
Carnicerı́a Teatro, which even got renamed to include the director’s
name, and thus became ‘the more hierarchical La Carnicerı́a-Rodrigo
Garcia’ (in Delgado and Rebellato 2010: 309). Interestingly, both
Knapper and Orozco cite Complicite as an example of a similar move
from collectivity towards a singular directorial leadership,6 even though
Helen Freshwater has highlighted Complicite’s ongoing self-professed
emphasis on collaboration as an essential working methodology
6 Introduction
(in Holdsworth and Luckhurst 2008: 177). Prompted by Grotowski’s
quote above, and in the context of this research project, one might also
do well to ask: What is the difference between ‘collaboration pure and
simple’ and collective creation?
As this section is intended to raise questions and frame the issues that
will be addressed later on the basis of empirical research, it is also worth
adding some nuance to the problem already mentioned of ensemble
leadership. Despite Orozco’s observation of ‘a shift towards director-led
theatre at the expense of collective creative structures’ (Orozco 2010:
309), there is ample historical evidence that a dominant leader has often
been associated with ensemble, especially if training and group develop-
ment formed part of the picture.
In Environmental Theater, Richard Schechner (1994 [1973]) rather
openly shares his experience of dealing with the power struggles within
the Performance Group just at the time when the group outwardly seemed
to be at its peak. He notes that Dionysus in 69 gave an impression of group
cohesion which was extremely attractive to the audience but at the same
time entirely unrepresentative of the company’s inner dynamics. Even
though Schechner confesses that his motives in forming the group with
his students were rooted in a desire to create a sense of community and a
kind of ‘family’ (1994 [1973]: 255), he observes that the life of the group
took its own course, turning him from a loved guru to a figure of hate.
This was apparently a common feature of organised groups according
to Philip Slater’s 1966 classic on group psychology, Microcosm, cited by
Schechner in his discussion. Eventually, Schechner observes the impor-
tance of delegating power, noting that Stanislavsky had avoided a loss of
authority by forming studio theatres and appointing his students to run
them (1994 [1973]: 284).
‘Should groups break up every few years so that routinization does
not encase them in their own discoveries?’ (1994 [1973]: 283) asks the
closing section of Schechner’s analysis. Interestingly, psychologist Bruce
Tuckman (1965) found that certain patterns in group dynamics do exist,
and his more reassuring model – amended in 1977 and still used by social
psychologists today – features a sequence of five stages:

1 Forming – a group comes together around a common goal.

2 Storming – conflicts and disagreements arise.
3 Norming – the group resolves conflicts and arrives at shared norms
and standards of behaviour.
4 Performing – the group effectively pursues its goal.
5 Adjourning – following the completion of the task, group members
loosen their ties to each other until the next task.7
 Introduction 7
It is clearly the stage of ‘storming’ that highlights the issues of inner poli-
tics of the group and potentially produces a leader in the ‘norming’ stage.
This model applies well to theatre groups as it follows the natural rhythm
of creating, performing and temporarily adjourning activity; however, it
can also be applied to an overview of a company’s lifespan, potentially
accounting for phases of initial success followed by a ‘storming’ period
involving funding issues or pressures entailed in the individual members’
work-life balance. The sequence is cyclical, regularly returning to the
‘storming stage’.
There is another pertinent similarity to be observed between many –
though not all – of the ensembles mentioned above. The initial stages
of the ensembles formed by Stanislavsky, Schechner, Mnouchkine,
Littlewood and Barba were all marked by a transition from ‘amateurism’
(Schechner 1994 [1973]: 257; Singleton on Mnouchkine in Delgado and
Rebellato 2010: 31) to professionalism. The early dependence on the lea-
der and the subsequent desire for emancipation would arguably be greater
in such cases than in cases where ensemble members come together as
more equal partners. This and other distinctions might provide us with
possibilities for looking at nuances of the relationship between the leader
and the ensemble, but also at the ways in which pedagogical practices in
and around ensemble have changed by the twenty-first century. It may be
interesting to add here that Mermikides and Smart have more recently
identified a model of ensemble in the UK comprised of a core group of
two people as a means of achieving collaboration, resisting directorial
authority and dealing with economic pressures (Mermikides and Smart
2010: 16–17). This represents more a model of ensemble leadership than
a model of ensemble company per se, but not surprisingly the model is
represented in this collection too.
Although the ensemble way of working can be encountered in various
cultural contexts, it will be subject to specific differences associated with
distinct political histories, cultural attitudes towards the arts and mechan-
isms of arts funding, or even cultural propensity for collaborative ways of
working. Cultural psychologist Harry Triandis has even proposed an
empirical set of criteria by which to measure cultural predisposition for
group behaviour, for example.8 More significantly, in the second half of
the twentieth century, an important differentiating factor existed
between the Eastern and the Western European countries due to their
respective political-economic systems of organisation. Despite its many
faults, the communist East was graced with generous arts funding which
made it a norm for theatres to employ permanent resident ensembles and
enjoy long rehearsal periods – a luxury which many theatre artists in
Eastern Europe find difficult to relinquish today. On the other hand, from
8 Introduction
a British perspective where a standard rehearsal period is five weeks, most
of European theatre is seen as heavily subsidised, in fact. Lichtenfels and
Hunter provide an interesting estimate that ‘the cities of Munich and
Hamburg each give more to their civic arts programmes than the Arts
Council gives to the whole of theatre in England’ (in Delgado and Svich
2002: 43). In the early twenty-first century process of globalisation, one
might ask what implications does this have on any attempts at cross-cul-
tural ensembles?
In trying to understand the nature of internal relations within an
ensemble, it also is important to acknowledge the existence of a number
of types of ensemble, which have emerged not simply as a result of train-
ing, but as a result of funding and employment structures (Northern
Stage, Dundee Rep, RSC and many Continental European ensembles) or
shared political or aesthetic values (Welfare State International, Kneehigh,
The Neo-Futurists, Forced Entertainment).
Additionally, in her analysis of Forced Entertainment’s creative metho-
dology, Alex Mermikides distinguishes between the ‘system model’ and
the ‘ensemble model’ of collective theatre-making whereby the former
refers to companies working together under the banner of a particular
methodology as opposed to the latter model where the ensemble is
assembled around a charismatic leader (in Harvie and Lavender 2010:
106). Although I admire this incisive classification, I would query the
applied terminology, opting for a broader understanding of the term
‘ensemble’, as this volume will testify. Nevertheless, Mermikides’s propo-
sition makes a very helpful contribution to the discussion of ensemble
leadership by distinguishing between the post-war type of ‘director’ and
the role that Tim Etchells assumed within Forced Entertainment. The key
departure taken by the company is a rejection of the Romantic idea of an
artist having total control over the artwork – an attitude held by the
‘post-war director’. The company therefore disassociated itself from ‘cal-
culated intentionality, individual authorship and the display of artistic
virtuosity – trappings of cultural elitism and hierarchy’ (2010: 105).
However:

At the same time, recognition of the power of the individual direc-

tor’s vision in creating innovative theatre, as well as the practical
advantages of leadership in making both administrative and creative
decisions, ensure that the auteur-director never really goes away.
(Harvie and Lavender 2010: 105)

In other words, it is indeed possible for a director within an ensemble to

choose to be a benevolent or a non-authoritative presence, rather than
 Introduction 9
conforming to previously-held preconceptions representing a threat to
the creative and political life of the group. Effectively, Mermikides’s ana-
lysis points to another issue which underlies this volume – the issue of
authority and the changing attitudes of contemporary theatre-makers
towards it.
Finally, before proceeding with a definition of key terms deployed by this
book, it is useful to conclude the historical overview by considering Simon
Shepherd’s taxonomy of group organisation in British theatre, arranged in
a vaguely chronological order by the time of their emergence: repertory,
ensemble, collective and collaboration. Shepherd associates repertory
theatres with the first half of the twentieth century in Britain, seeing them
as a step between the Victorian entrepreneurial model of theatre-making
and an artistic ensemble, and highlights their key value as being a greater
empowerment for the actors and their increased connection with the com-
munity. Ensembles are understood by reference to the continental influ-
ences described above and seen as emerging mid-twentieth century.
Shepherd cites an interesting example of Joint Stock under Max Stafford-
Clark starting off as an ensemble but in the course of the rehearsals of
David Hare’s highly political piece Fanshen in 1974 arriving at a crossroads
between an ensemble and a collective. The distinction between the two
is drawn on the basis of how the principles of political organisation and
aesthetic effect are prioritised in relation to each other, with the latter
prioritising political over the artistic concerns.9
In the aftermath of 1968 in Europe, the notion of political organisation
of artists was clearly becoming paramount, and this is illustrated by the
example of Mnouchkine’s work in France (Singleton 2010), as well as the
rise of fringe companies following the end of theatre censorship in Britain.
Sandy Craig credits this particular year with the emergence of what he
calls ‘alternative theatre’ in Britain, encompassing political theatre, com-
munity theatre, theatre-in-education, performance art and companies
presenting plays with a different agenda from the mainstream literary thea-
tre (Craig 1980: 20). From this temporal distance, one has to recognise
that such developments, including the formation of an increasing number
of collectives at the time, were clearly linked to their political context of
Great Britain during the Cold War, and often motivated by a strong left
wing ideology which, although it was losing popular support (paving the
way for Margaret Thatcher’s victory in 1979), had found fertile ground
among the artists. This resulted in significant and highly influential exam-
ples of collectives defined by their socialist (Red Ladder), gender
(Monstrous Regiment) or sexual (Gay Sweatshop) politics.
The 1970s are marked not only by the proliferation of fringe companies
and collectives, but also by the emergence of a new theatre-making
10 Introduction
process. According to Jen Harvie (2005), through the abolition of the
Lord Chamberlain, British theatre was no longer bound by the notion of a
pre-written text.10 This process which gives the ensemble members an
authorship role in the making of a piece has variously been referred to as:
improvisation (in the Stanislavskian tradition); authorial work (‘autor-
skirad RAD’, ‘autorsko divadlo’ in East European contexts where fine art
or scenography exerted greater influence than dramatic text on theatre-
makers); collective creation (in the French context); workshopping (by
Joan Littlewood); creative collaboration (in the US); and devising (more
broadly in the UK).
The term ‘devising’ appears to have entered the theatre-making vocabu-
lary in the UK via the very specific practice of theatre-in-education (TIE),
which often involved groups of artists devising educational ‘programmes’
rather than solely ‘plays’. The term emerged between the inception of the
Belgrade Theatre Coventry in 1964 (as an institution which pioneered
TIE work) and 1980 when the first written record of it appeared in Dave
Pammenter’s contribution to Tony Jackson’s book on TIE Learning Through
Theatre. Nevertheless, ‘devising’ has since grown to become synonymous
with an entire field of non-dramatic theatre and performance in the UK,
and progressively in the rest of the English-speaking world.11
It is interesting that Shepherd recognises a fourth type of a theatre-making
group of artists which he denotes using the American term ‘collaboration’,
but under which he clearly refers to a type of collective which has left its
political drives behind in the interest of art, interdisciplinarity and public
engagement. This type of ensemble is popularly associated with devising as a
methodology; however, Shepherd’s choice of term appears to be determined
also by the Arts Council’s emphasis on ‘collaboration’ as a desired quality of
fundable work at the turn of the twenty-first century.12 ‘Collaboration’, he
concludes, ‘slides from being an organizational issue into being a funding
category’ (Shepherd 2009: 79), thus polarising even further away from the
notion of collective ‘creation’.
However, the attempt at a departure from the term ‘devising’ may well
be wise, not least because of the fact that its apparent inflation in the UK
has led to a number of misconceptions. First, its implied binary opposition
to text-based theatre tends to create confusion in Continental Europe,
as work on any pre-written text in many European mainstream theatres
customarily involves a collective and an improvisational approach in
the process of rehearsal. Attending Eugenio Barba’s 2005 International
School of Theatre Anthropology in Wroclaw on the topic of Improvisa-
tion, I was repeatedly struck by the amount of devising we were involved
in under the name of ‘improvisation’; my Anglo-Saxon understanding
of the term ‘improvisation’ had led me to anticipate a focus on
 Introduction 11
‘extemporaneous performance’. More importantly for this project, the
overuse of the term in the British context has also led to a conflation of
the terms ‘devising’ and ‘ensemble’, where it is implied that ensembles
typically devise and only exceptionally work with plays and playwrights. I
am keen to redress this balance as part of this project, and to recognise the
increasing and undeniably healthy interplay between actors and writers
in the contemporary ensemble (e.g. Frantic Assembly, Kneehigh, The
Riot Group, Third Angel).

Definitions of key terms

The historical overview above has highlighted potential uses of the term
‘ensemble’ as applying to an anti-hierarchical – art rather than business-
oriented – model of working which emphasises inner interconnectedness
between individual members and is often characterised by a commitment
to training. The ‘ensemble’, as suggested by Shepherd (2009), could
be specifically perceived as being the result of a mid-twentieth century
Continental European influence which was outgrown in the UK by
‘devising’ collectives in the 1970s, and counterpointed in the US by
groups engaged in ‘creative collaboration’. Different conceptions and
manifestations of the ensemble way of working in different cultural con-
texts must therefore be understood in relation to their own specific genea-
logies, if meaningful cross-cultural collaboration is to take place in an
increasingly globalised world. The twenty-first century ensemble takes
into consideration different funding structures, different attitudes to tradi-
tion and innovation, changing conceptions of leadership and authority,
and varying artistic vocabularies.
More specifically, the understanding of the term ‘ensemble’ in this
volume is culturally broad enough to include manifestations of collective
theatre-making that comply with and depart from notions of twentieth
century divisions of labour (actors, directors, playwrights, designers,
composers); various models of organisation (from state-funded residential
ensembles to peripatetic associations of like-minded individuals, to
abstracted notions of ensemble in the absence of continuous funding);
and various models of artistic practice (text-based, movement-based,
inter-disciplinary, conceptually-driven). The main criterion is that the
subjects represented here are speaking not only on behalf of themselves as
individuals, but on behalf of an artistic entity which depends upon the
contribution of other – often long-term – collaborators as constituent
parts of that entity.
‘The ensemble way of working’ is understood to represent a work ethos
which is collective, creative and collaborative – whether by means of
12 Introduction
individual members making the same kind of contribution (devising) or
making distinct kinds of contribution towards the same artistic outcome
(writing, directing, composing, designing, performing). Both devising and
playwriting are therefore understood as potentially ensemble-based activ-
ities. This book may even go as far as to suggest that the ensemble way of
working is a default methodology for theatre-making as it is discernable
even among practitioners who do not work under the banner of an
ensemble, such as director Katie Mitchell, but may work with the same
individuals repeatedly.13
This may also be true of individuals, such as the director Mike Alfreds,
whose work is contingent on an ensemble methodology and on audience
participation in the creation of meaning, as he will reveal in his inter-
view. These examples may well raise the question of the economic con-
text within which this kind of work is being made. As will be pointed out
by Michael Boyd, the notion of ‘the ensemble way of working’ and the
inherently collaborative nature of theatre-making is in practice more dif-
ficult to achieve in a free market economy than it is in the heavily subsi-
dised context of a Central European country in which it is simply
standard practice.
The term ‘contemporary’ is used to disassociate the notion of ‘ensem-
ble’ from any previously held conceptions of either the political or the
aesthetic nature of the ensembles represented here. In most cases, the
featured ensembles are still active, and if they are not, they have been
chosen for inclusion because of the ways in which they have been ahead
of their time and have precipitated changes that we are witnessing today
in relation to theatre authorship and its relationship with the audience.
The contemporary – early twenty-first century – ensemble is often charac-
terised by shared authority, multi-ethnicity, cultural mobility, multilingu-
alism, inter-disciplinarity and a broad understanding of theatre and
performance. The contemporary ensemble deploys collaboration as a
strategy, not for purely political or pragmatic reasons, but as an indication
of a system of artistic values.
And finally a word about ‘theatre-making’ – a term which is increas-
ingly gaining currency in the twenty-first century. In 2010, in the process
of writing a case study of Alan Lyddiard’s Northern Stage (1998–2005)
and its debt to Lev Dodin for Jonathan Pitches’ volume Russians in
Britain, I interviewed the Guardian critic Lyn Gardner, a one-time
advocate of Lyddiard’s work. Talking more broadly about ensemble work
during this interview, Gardner made a useful and inspiring distinction
between actors and ‘theatre-makers’ in British theatre. The implication
seemed to be that – contrary to the drama school graduates, customarily
bound by the strategising of their agents – the latter type of performer
 Introduction 13
would be associated with devised work and the kind of organic ensembles
that have emerged from universities. Interestingly, the term is also
deployed by Harvie and Lavender in their 2010 volume on international
theatre-making processes, where in the summation of the project as a
whole, it is closely linked to the notion of postdramatic theatre prac-
tices.14 Needless to say, the book encompasses theatre-makers who work
both with playtexts and the creative methodologies that might be called
‘devising’. These theatre-makers are also not simply directors, actors,
designers or writers, but often combine a number of different kinds of
labour into one role. My recourse to the term ‘theatre-making’ is intended
to register a certain change of climate. Even when live art is brought into
this book’s frame of reference, it is with the understanding that its use is
integrated within a working process that is ultimately theatre-based – and
my understanding of this is that it presupposes the presence of an audi-
ence in a singular time and space (however complex this notion might
have become in a mediatised society) and an act of communi(cati)on
with them. This is by no means intended to discredit the efforts of live
and performance artists, but on the contrary to acknowledge their
achievement in bringing theatre back in touch with its heritage of live
performance and visual art in those contexts where literary standards
might have predominated.
There are no catchphrases – the terms used here are existing terms
being imbued with new meanings through changing times. The ambition
of this book is therefore not to radically break with the past, but to
observe the possibility that theatre may change organically, leaving
behind some of its old concerns – such as psychological realism, particular
divisions of labour, notions of professionalism and amateurism, forms of
authorship and authority, political and ideological drives, aesthetic pre-
ferences, established relationships with the audience. Its ability to move
with and reflect the changing times is precisely its defining characteristic,
and this book is an attempt to keep a finger on the pulse of the time.

Selection criteria
Being a compilation of primary research, this volume provides an oppor-
tunity for many of the previously unheard voices to share information
about their practice and their way of working. The questions posed to
them are often open questions, driven by a genuine curiosity, and by a
desire to connect with and understand my interlocutors. A reader might
feel that there are potential issues emerging within some of the interviews
that are not made sufficiently explicit through questioning, or that cer-
tain questions are evaded. As an interviewer, I found it important to
14 Introduction
ensure the interviewees’ trust by avoiding undue confrontation or chal-
lenging issues. Prior to publication, all of the interviews were sent to the
interviewees for comments, in the process of which some were edited.
Most of them have also been slightly condensed by me in order to sharpen
the focus on the issues under examination. The kind of material made
available here should certainly be open to the reader’s interpretation and
critical analysis, rather than forming any kind of gospel truth. As a means
of summarising my findings, I offer a brief overview at the end of this
chapter. Some of these findings will have subsequently informed an
examination of the modes of authorship in contemporary theatre – and
specifically the interplay between text and performance – in a separate
book project entitled Theatre-Making (Palgrave 2013), which partly
explores the thesis that the ensemble way of working has effected notable
changes in this domain.
As implied above, one of the main criteria in selecting subjects for this
volume has been inclusivity – although of course the limited space of this
volume will inevitably raise questions about certain exclusions. I wanted
to have a variety of voices ranging from performers to directors, writers
and dramaturgs. (Ideally, I wanted some composers, designers and choreo-
graphers as well, but these kinds of professionals often tend to work as
freelancers rather than as permanent ensemble members). I also wanted a
variety of cultural backgrounds, although for reasons of my own geogra-
phical location, almost half of the selected subjects are UK-based.
However, rather than aiming to have particular cultural groups and ethni-
cities represented in the selection (Asian and African representatives are
conspicuous by their absence here), I was more interested in examples of
cross-cultural ensembles which have achieved international recognition
(Not Yet It’s Difficult, Song of the Goat, Ontroerend Goed). In most
cases, the ensembles represented are at least 10 years old; they have there-
fore already survived potential moments of ‘storming’ in their career and
acquired certain wisdom worth sharing in this context. And finally, I
wanted a variety of ensemble models – from big state-funded residential
companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Berliner
Ensemble, to those that have gone through various phases of development
(Kneehigh, Pig Iron), and those that are experimental in their structure
(Shadow Casters, Ontroerend Goed). Sometimes, the chosen subjects
have had the experience of working with more than one kind of ensem-
ble, such as Joanna Holden (Northern Stage, Kneehigh, Cirque du
Soleil), or they may have more than one hat or cultural base, such as
Gabor Tompa. In one case, the representatives of two different ensembles
Alexander Kelly (Third Angel) and Chris Thorpe (Unlimited) are inter-
viewed about their ongoing collaboration.
 Introduction 15
I was also highly motivated by a desire to include some of the voices
that are not usually heard in this context (dramaturg Hanna Slättne –
Tinderbox, producer Richard Jordan), and conversely, despite my own
desire to hear the voices of Frantic Assembly, Simon McBurney and
Forced Entertainment, I refrained from including these companies as they
have recently received analysis in some of the titles cited above. Rare
exceptions to this are Elizabeth LeCompte and Max Stafford-Clark,
where I was motivated to draw further insights in addition to those
already available in recent publications, and actually elicit their own
accounts of the initial emergence of their companies and their working
methods.
Each interview features a short contextual statement about the com-
pany/artists being represented in it and a brief bibliography (where avail-
able). Typically, the subject’s background and formative influences are
covered, as well as any characteristic working methodologies and indivi-
dual examples of work. Most of the interviews were recorded live and
transcribed, with the exception of Ian Morgan where the interview took
place in writing. Both of these methodologies have their advantages and
disadvantages – spontaneity on the one hand, as opposed to depth of
insight on the other – and I opted to have both represented in this collec-
tion. Live interviews provided an opportunity to respond to the moment,
and I allowed each interviewee to drive the conversation in the direction
they wanted, as long as this was within the parameters of my enquiry:
Shaplin, Shadow Casters and Ontroerend Goed were clearly motivated
by a desire to record a certain chronology of their ensemble works as part
of the interviews; Holden wanted to offer details from rehearsals; and
Tompa had strong feelings on the comparative advantages and disadvan-
tages of working in distinct cultural contexts. In terms of length, the
interviews range from 2,500 to 7,500 words, becoming longer towards
the end of the volume as more contemporary or innovative practices are
brought into the mix, requiring more detailed contextualisation.
The material collected so far has yielded insights falling into three
broad categories:

1 Redefinitions of ensemble. For example, the term ‘family’ as a metaphor

divides the subjects: Boyd and Rice are against it, while some sub-
jects, like Pejović and Bakal (Shadow Casters), literally do have
families together.15 Admittedly, the notion of ‘ensemble as family’
does seem to belong to an age of political idealism which has long
been replaced by other realities, although other kinds of personal ide-
alism are still in evidence. Boyd’s project is motivated by a desire to
overcome the pervading culture of individualism and isolation in
16 Introduction
contemporary society. LeCompte, on the other hand, has defined her
ensemble by reference to a space which has kept the company
together ever since its inception. Adassinsky and Shaplin tend to use
musical analogies when discussing their creative processes. Most
interestingly, Ontroerend Goed define themselves as a group with
‘mutual compatibilities’ – which, according to some theorists of
business organisation (Amabile 1998), is a highly positive model.
2 Redefinitions of the roles and processes within the ensemble. As noted
above, the twentieth century notions of professionalisation in theatre
are being challenged by contemporary ensemble practices, both in
terms of the power relations within the ensembles (e.g. notions of
leadership) and the kinds of expertise carried by individual ensemble
members. This is partly a result of the new theatre-makers’ training
backgrounds. In the English-speaking world we are witnessing a pro-
liferation of university drama graduates who, by the nature of the
pedagogical processes they are exposed to and due to the sheer
numbers of those wishing to study the subject in the 2000s, are
increasingly conditioned to work in groups. Most notable additions
to this trend include Little Bulb (University of Kent), Belt Up
(University of York), Paper Birds (University of Leeds) and Rash
Dash (University of Hull). However, they have predecessors in
Unlimited Theatre (University of Leeds), Third Angel (University of
Lancaster), The Riot Group (Sarah Lawrence College), Ontroerend
Goed (Ghent University) and Frantic Assembly (Swansea Univer-
sity), none of whom have had formal theatre training, and in the case
of the latter three, little or no exposure to drama/theatre/performance
as a university subject. What each of these companies has encoun-
tered is a certain necessity to defend or justify their entitlement to
practice theatre-making, which brings to mind the guild-like exclu-
sivity of the theatre establishments in various cultures. However,
their success is by all means good news for the contemporary ensem-
ble, as each one of these examples has brought in a new perspective
on the craft itself and the notions of authority and authorship. This is
also true of some companies which did not graduate together, such as
The Neo-Futurists, founded by Greg Allen to include specifically
writer-performers.
3 Redefinitions of the relationship with the audience. One of the most nota-
ble of my recent theatre-going experiences has been the encounter
with Ontroerend Goed in their one-to-one exploration of contem-
porary relationships Internal (2009). This piece, which turned
audience members into protagonists of sorts, soon proved to be no
isolated case, as a whole range of one-to-one performances got
 Introduction 17
presented by the Battersea Arts Centre for two years running in 2010
and 2011. Simultaneously, the Croatian troupe Shadow Casters has
over the years developed a series of interactive performances, at times
designed to empower audience members to take action in the
changing political world of what was once Eastern Europe. Both
Schechner (1994 [1973]) and Shepherd (2009) have pointed out that
what is particularly appealing about ensembles is the opportunity for
the audience to witness and hypothetically partake of a certain kind
of collectivity: ‘What is performed is a possible way of working
together in the world’ (Shepherd 2009: 71). Bert O. States uses the
term ‘collaborative mode’ to define the default relationship between
the actor and the audience in most dramatic theatre (in Zarrilli 1995:
29), while Simon Murray quotes an interesting instance of Theatre
de Complicite expressing the Lecoqian principle of ‘the pleasure of
play’ by defining their communication mode as a ‘collusion of cele-
brants’ in the programme note for The Three Lives of Lucy Chabrol
(Murray 2003: 71). Claire Bishop has noted a paradigmatic move in
the UK towards a more active engagement of the audience across the
arts (Bishop 2006, 2012) while an increasing number of scholars have
turned to the study of spectatorship (Grehan 2009; Kennedy 2009;
Fensham 2009). Examples such as Ontroerend Goed and Shadow
Casters clearly highlight the possibility of audience members becom-
ing part of the contemporary ensemble. The fact that these three
examples point to a simultaneous pursuit of similar goals, in what
might have previously been seen as Eastern and Western Europe, is
also a good sign in my view. One advantage of a globalised world in
the twenty-first century might be the possibility that we intuitively
understand each other better.

These trends of redefinition have been used to group the interviews into
the three parts Redefinitions of ensemble, Working processes and Ensemble
and the audience, although these themes – as well as a number of other
resonant themes – run throughout the whole collection. Additional reso-
nances include redefinitions of leadership, training and education, ensem-
ble economics, and cross-cultural collaboration. Some of the artists
represented will have worked together – Joanna Holden and Gabor
Tompa at Northern Stage; Michael Boyd and Adriano Shaplin at the
RSC; the RSC and The Wooster Group – testifying to a certain like-
mindedness shared by those companies. More interestingly, however,
some of the examples show striking similarities in method and outlook
even if they have never met – especially the artists featured in the final
part of the volume.
18 Introduction
Preliminary conclusions
Representing an ensemble of distinct but harmonious voices, this collec-
tion should ideally serve only as a potential starting point for consideration
of other examples whose absence may be noted here, or which are yet to
emerge. The user of this book is encouraged to make personal observations
about the particular nature of ensemble work or any other emerging ideas
concerning the twenty-first century ensemble. By way of conclusion to this
introduction, I offer some of the observations I have arrived at in the
process of collecting these testimonies in the last three years.
Artistic and methodological values, inherent in collaborative ways of
working associated with the creative practices of the latter half of the
twentieth century in the West, are in fact to be found in many text-based
and playwright-centred ensemble models. The ensemble way of working
therefore spans the previously-perceived binary between text-based and
devised theatre in the English-speaking world.
Text-oriented ensembles, as opposed to temporary casts of actors,
appear to have a deeper, more sophisticated approach to their treatment
of plays or the stories used as their departure point. Even the reservations
about logistical and artistic drawbacks of institutionalised ensembles in
Eastern Europe, voiced by directors such as Tompa and Butusov, are easily
outweighed by the benefits of the ensemble way of working. Ensembles of
long-term collaborators tend to be interested in foregrounding a shared
performance vocabulary which may range from ‘actor’s jargon’ as noted
by Stanislavsky (Pitches 2006: 6)16 to notions of visual vocabulary layered
together with textual content described by Tompa, and the kinds of
physical vocabulary described by Peter Eckersall or Dan Rothenberg. In
addition, intuition is often identified as an underlying principle of the
processes unfolding within ensembles, as in the work of The Wooster
Group, Derevo or Improbable. This may be the case even when the
ensemble ethos is being shared by these practitioners with first-time or
one-off collaborators, as is sometimes the case with Phelim McDermott
or Mike Alfreds’ freelance projects. In some cases, the ensemble processes
are understood as being analogous to orchestral or musical performance,
even when the ensemble, such as The Riot Group, is centred around a
playwright. This is not a recent development. According to Govan,
Nicholson and Normington, this musical sensibility in ensemble theatre-
making is traceable back to Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop and
Julian Beck’s Living Theatre, both of whose working processes were
likened to jazz improvisation (Govan et al. 2007: 49).
Ensembles are ultimately geared towards acknowledging the centrality
of the actor/performer’s contribution to the process of theatre-making
 Introduction 19
(Alfreds, McDermott, Adassinsky). Even when some of the respondents,
such as Stafford-Clark, allow for the possibility of having a star ensemble,
they are adamant about nurturing and protecting the star quality from
within, and resisting commercial casting pressures coming from the out-
side. Similarly, Michael Boyd in his keynote speech at the Equity and
DGGB Ensemble Conference in November 2004 said that the ensemble
should be about ‘making stars, not chasing them’. And it is also interest-
ing to note that many of the ensemble leaders represented here are
(or once were) performers themselves (e.g. Rice, Shaplin, Kelly, Allen,
McDermott).
Specific key terms appear to be resonating throughout the collection:
transformation, liveness, connectedness, openness and the ‘here and
now’17 are performance qualities valued by a range of companies, includ-
ing Derevo, Song of the Goat, Improbable and Pig Iron, as well as practi-
tioners oriented towards including the audience in the ‘ensemble work’
such as Mike Alfreds, Shadow Casters and Ontroerend Goed. The
removal of the fourth wall is perhaps indicative of a desire to dispense
with previously-held hierarchies and models of authority in theatre too.
Despite observations made about the nature of ensemble leadership in
the twentieth century, it is increasingly evident that the nature of artistic
directorship in contemporary ensembles is changing too. As noted above,
companies such as Third Angel, Shadow Casters and Song of the Goat are
distinguished by having tandems at the helm. The founder of The Neo-
Futurists, Greg Allen, has temporarily shared the Artistic Directorship of
the Chicago company with ensemble member Jay Torrence, while the
New York Neo-Futurists has its own leadership.18 Meanwhile Improbable
and Pig Iron have each had a triumvirate of artistic directors. Allen and
McDermott have both expressed an interest in group self-determination –
Allen’s route has been through consensus voting, which he has found to
be better for the creative process than for organisational governance (Love
2008: 31), while McDermott has opted for Open Space conferencing and
process-oriented psychology as a means of facilitating ensemble dynamics.
The interviews that follow reveal that ensemble leaders in fact rarely relish
the leadership role: Anton Adassinsky prefers performing to directing, and
The Riot Group doesn’t even have a ‘director’; Mike Alfreds is noted as
behaving more as a ‘coach’; Phelim McDermott ‘puts [himself] out of a
job’; and Elizabeth LeCompte sees herself as a ‘director in a group’ rather
than ‘director of a group’.19
My recent interview with Erica Daniels, the Associate Artistic
Director of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company (which unfortu-
nately did not make the final draft of the book), highlights that Martha
Lavey, Artistic Director of the company since 1995, ‘doesn’t ever really
20 Introduction
lead from the place of ‘‘This is what I want’’’. Instead, her leadership style
is a matter of a ‘delicate balance’ of maintaining the founding principles
of the company and articulating the present strengths of ‘ensemble,
innovation and citizenship’.20 Daniels notes that the entire company,
including administrative staff, are treated as an ensemble. This has also
been the nature of Michael Boyd’s vision for the Royal Shakespeare
Company during his artistic directorship 2002–2012. In the 2010 Demos
report on the company, Hewison and colleagues conclude from analysing
the RSC example that:

when it comes to applying the term more broadly to organisational

development, ensemble should be thought of not only as a way of
doing or as a management tool, but as a way of being, based on a set
of moral principles that guide leadership decisions and administrative
actions.
(Hewison et al. 2010: 46)

Even though companies on this scale are often seen to be in an economic-

ally privileged position by comparison to ensembles which are primarily
held together by their members’ moral investment, it should not be
underestimated how challenging for a leader it must be to maintain an
artistic vision which aims to imbue 600–700 employees with the same
work ethos.21 Part of the aim of this book is to recognise the commitment
to the ensemble way of working on all levels, regardless of scale, in the
hope that this might facilitate a more supportive cultural environment for
emerging ensembles.22
Another important aspect of the ensemble way of working is its inter-
relation with training and education. Pig Iron, The Riot Group, Third
Angel, Unlimited Theatre and Ontroerend Goed all acknowledge that
they owe their origins to shared training or educational environment,
which facilitated their initial encounter. Some of the interviewees, such
as Dan Rothenberg and Emma Rice, also note the ways in which they
developed their individual ensemble methodologies by responding to and
even reacting against the particular training practices they had previously
absorbed. Thus both Rice and Tompa are suspicious of ‘fidelity’ in theatre:
Tompa encourages ‘sacred unfaithfulness’,23 while Ian Morgan reports
that Grotowski encouraged ‘excellent rebellion’. As they mature, ensem-
bles such as Derevo, Improbable, Pig Iron and Steppenwolf proceed to
develop support networks, mentoring and even accredited training
programmes for younger artists, while The Neo-Futurists constantly
regenerate the ensemble through frequent auditions. Both Steppenwolf
 Introduction 21
and the RSC also have very healthy and busy education departments
intended to connect with school audiences. Sometimes, as in the case
of Shadow Casters, the process of mutual learning and development
between the artists and the audience becomes intertwined with the
company’s aesthetic and work ethic.
Finally, as noted by Morgan, Eckersall and Jordan, increased mobility
and technological development is opening up possibilities for some fasci-
nating exchange and cross-cultural ensemble initiatives, thus creating
scope for further learning and internationalisation.
Despite these extraordinary achievements of ensemble theatre-makers,
one major problem remains: how to survive periods of ‘storming’ and to
defend to funding bodies a model of working which involves long rehear-
sal periods and, in some cases, a number of people on payroll? Some
self-made ensembles, like Derevo, Kneehigh, The Neo-Futurists, The
Wooster Group and Pig Iron, are lucky to have acquired their own spaces
in which to make work, but in many cases the struggle is still on to gain
recognition and proper support for the values inherent in working
together long-term. This book is a small contribution to that struggle.

Notes
1 Oxford Dictionaries: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ensemble?q=
ensemble.
2 For the business model of theatre in Britain, see Davis (2000). Early propo-
nents of the National Theatre model included William Archer, Harley
Granville-Barker and George Bernard Shaw.
3 John Bull has however argued that ‘Brecht’s direct influence on the theatre of
the 1950s in Britain was fairly negligible, and chiefly concerned with a new
understanding of the use of stage space’. Although he concedes that the aes-
thetic influence was evidenced in the work of William Gaskill at the Royal
Court, for example, he blames the general anti-intellectualism of British thea-
tre artists for a partial appropriation of Brechtian influence overall. See Bull
(1994).
4 Deirdre Heddon and Jane Milling have also raised concerns over this model of
ensemble, acknowledging some more extreme interpretations of such ways of
working. Arnold Aronson sardonically noted that:

most groups functioned more on the model of the totalitarian phase of

communism: there was a collective of actors, but the groups tended to
have autocratic, even dictatorial, leaders in the form of visionary directors,
who, in essence, replaced the playwright as the creative fount for texts.
(Heddon and Milling 2006: 61)

5 Many thanks to Paul Allain who found this document in the Wroclaw
Grotowski archive and made it available for reference here.
22 Introduction
6 Stephen Knapper notes in relation to Complicite:

In common with many other European companies – Théâtre du Soleil and

Els Joglars, for example – the initial emphasis on collective creation and
decision-making gave way to a more director-led operation in such
ground-breaking productions as Dürrenmatt’s The Visit (1989), where
McBurney directed alongside fellow company co-founder Annabel Arden.
(in Delgado and Rebellato 2010: 234)

7 The fifth stage, added in 1977, is attributed jointly to Tuckman and Mary
Ann Jensen.
8 According to this structure, cultural values are measured in relation to the
horizontal and vertical individualism-collectivism scale, whereby a horizontal
disposition is more inclined towards equality and social cohesion, while a
vertical disposition is more inclined towards hierarchy and the notions of
deference and sacrifice for the group. Various studies have interestingly con-
trasted the US as a – presumably typical – example of a Vertical Individualist
culture to either the Vertical Collectivist cultures of the East (e.g. Turkey in
Cukur et al. 2004) or the Horizontal Individualist cultures of the West
(Denmark in Shavitt et al. 2006), though the former study was admittedly
more interested in dispelling the notion of cultural stereotyping and focusing
on the correlation of ‘universal’ values instead. What this provides for our
research into ensembles is a potential set of criteria when analysing the atti-
tudes of the individual ensemble members towards their ensemble and their
way of working. These criteria might include power, achievement, benevo-
lence, self-direction and security (as was the case in Cukur et al.’s experiment),
and they may provide templates for various models of leadership designed to
foster either performance quality or group cohesion or both. Ultimately, how-
ever, what these structures provide is the possibility of examining more objec-
tively perceived power relations within an ensemble and dispelling the myth
that groups with leaders necessarily imply oppression. Even if this kind of
enquiry cannot be addressed within the scope of the current study, it would
certainly create a good basis for a further empirical research project.
9 Interestingly, Anne Fliotsos notes a brief existence in the US of director-less
collectives, where authority was devolved among company members, but she
explains their failure to survive by the fact that the model was ignored by the
educational system (Fliotsos 2004: 78).
10 Jen Harvie notes that, in the UK, ‘censorship legally enhanced the primacy of
the written script and made devised and improvised theatre nearly impossible
to stage’ (Harvie 2005:116).
11 In July 2011, I conducted an informal survey on the Standing Conference of
University Drama Departments (SCUDD) mailbase – at the time comprising
1,400 predominantly British subscribers – seeking references to the potential
first use of the term ‘devising’ before Alison Oddey’s seminal 1994 work
Devising Theatre. Kathleen McCreery, Tony Coult and Paul Kleiman all inde-
pendently suggested that the use of the term ‘devising’ was linked specifically
to the theatre-in-education (TIE) work.
12 Collaboration has stayed on the agenda since, and as of 2010 it has
manifested itself through an emphasis on interdisciplinarity and the so-called
‘Combined Arts’ agenda associated with the Grants for the Arts scheme
 Introduction 23
(http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/funded-projects/case-studies/grants-for-
arts-combined-arts/).
13 In his recent article on Mitchell, Rebellato specifies that Mitchell’s involve-
ment with regular collaborators is driven by the interests of the artwork rather
than the ‘collaborative working [as] an end in itself, a political or ethical
rehearsal for the revolution’ (Rebellato 2010: 329), but he also offers a useful
quote of Mitchell’s views on the matter:

I don’t like new relationships because you have to waste a lot of energy
shaping the relationship and you can’t work so easily because you are
learning the person. My relationship with an actor should be equivalent
to my relationship with my creative team: it’s another exceptional adult
I’m in partnership with and we’re going to make something together.
(Rebellato 2010: 329)

14 In her introductory chapter, Harvie dissects Lehmann’s term to imply, in a

more layered sense, that contemporary theatre, which has surpassed not only
the concerns of dramatic but also of postmodern theatre, is to be understood as
a ‘communicative art’ which uses a broad set of means, a ‘communicative act’
which addresses a broad set of themes and ‘an industry embedded in globaliza-
tion, commodity culture and economic markets’ (Harvie 2010: 13).
15 In contrast to Boyd, Peter Hall believes that ‘family’ and ‘ensemble’ are inter-
changeable. According to Hewison et al., Hall also ‘[does] not believe that it is
possible to run a family, a tribe, or a collective, or whatever, without there
being a boss’ (Hewison et al. 2010: 56) – an attitude perhaps more typical of
the ‘post-war director’ as defined by Mermikides.
16 ‘Language, then, is a crucial aspect in the formulation of groups, acting at one
and the same time to facilitate communication within the group and as a
vehicle for defining the boundaries of that group. Stanislavsky was appealing
to the same logic in the preface to An Actor’s Work on Himself, defining the
community of System actors by their ‘actors’ jargon’ (Pitches 2006: 6). In this
collection, Mike Alfreds notes that even a shared jargon can no longer be
relied on in contemporary theatre.
17 Ma1gorzata Sugiara has noted that this move from the Stanislavskian ‘as if’ to
the ‘here and now’ is a characteristic of postdramatic theatre: ‘The basic ‘‘as if’’
convention, upheld in theatre (as well as in the drama written for this thea-
tre), has gradually been replaced by theatre’s differentia specifica: its ‘here and
now’ quality and the temporal immediacy of its media’ (Sugiara 2004).
18 In an interview with Bret Love, Allen has explained how this model of leader-
ship is in keeping with the founding principles of the company based on egali-
tarianism (Love 2008).
19 Similarly, according to Freshwater ‘[Simon] McBurney takes every opportunity
to shift critical attention away from issues of his own achievements as a direc-
tor and towards the creative input of the performers’ (in Holdsworth and
Luckhurst 2008: 186).
20 Interview with Erica Daniels, 29 April 2012, Chicago.
21 The figure is given by the RSC website as the total number of employees
‘including actors, permanent and casual members of staff and freelancers’
(http://www.rsc.org.uk/about-us/our-work/whos-who.aspx).
24 Introduction
22 Currently in the UK, the National Theatre and the Young Vic do have
schemes intended to nurture and support young directors, while similar
schemes at the same level are as yet unavailable for ensembles.
23 Admittedly, Rice and Tompa were both referring to issues of ‘fidelity’ in rela-
tion to the original text being used for their productions rather than specifi-
cally a training heritage; however the attitude is indicative of the necessity to
rely on one’s own performance idiom rather than following blindly in the foot-
steps of others.

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Directing as an art of composition

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A tried and tested ensemble methodology

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‘A group of people around a place'
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On regional theatre-making
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Lyn Gardner http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/lyngardner

Beyond words
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From a community to the West End
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On being an ensemble actor in the UK

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An actor's journey between Wales and Wroclaw

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‘Comic figures repurposed'

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Ensemble as a musical ‘intersubjective unit'

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Working together in Northern Ireland

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On writing and performance in an ensemble

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Sharing the experience of imagination

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An interactive ensemble
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‘Creating safe emergencies'

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The dramaturgy of long-term cross-cultural collaboration
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Ensemble as a tool of civic engagement

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Shadow Casters), Frakcija, 47–48: 46–53.
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On courting the audience

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Towards a global ensemble

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