Fittingly, ensemble theater has many antecedents. There is no "one way" it is done, and practitioners resist being put in a box.
More than a century ago, Russian actor/director Konstantin Stanislavsky favored a disciplined company that would work collectively and use rehearsal as a means of inquiry. Russian companies still work along these lines. In fact, many European theater companies, which receive state funding, can afford to pay a troupe to take the long haul in creating work that goes into repertory.
In the United States, Julian Beck and Judith Malina founded the Living Theatre in 1940s New York on a non-hierarchical model that reflected the kind of society they wanted to see. The work was experimental, the process radically open and democratic.
The Network of Ensemble Theaters (of which Sandbox is a member) includes about 200 theaters with a great diversity of methods.
Much of today's ensemble work is brushed with the broad stroke of experimental theater. Elevator Repair Service, which has performed at the Walker Art Center several times, spent months constructing a show that used the entire text of "The Great Gatsby." The words, obviously, were there, but the company created a scenario within a warehouse that was totally new and wild.
SITI, founded in 1992 by Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki, is known for its rigorous movement. The Wooster Group posts videos at thewoostergroup.org that indicate what they're up to. Mabou Mines many years ago deconstructed "A Doll's House" with radical ferocity — a production that came to the Walker.
However, the Chicago-based collective Steppenwolf in many respects seems like a conventional company. It is perhaps best known for the scripts of playwright Tracy Letts, a company member who won a 2008 Pulitzer Prize for "August: Osage County."
Graydon Royce
