Devised and ensemble-based theatre breaks down barriers and hierarchies between directors, writers, and performers in order to create work as a group of artists. In this section, you’ll find content about pieces made this way, thoughts from the creators, and learning on how to do it. The 2014 Ensemble Series is a great entry point.
The Latest
Video
Theatre in Times of War and State Violence
2026 National Institute for Directing and Ensemble Creation
Thursday 4 June 2026
Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Essay
Slow-Motion Gives Forced Migrants the Chance to Move at Their Own Speed
by Dmitrii Zenkov
15 April 2026
Video
A Conversation with Purva Bedi and Mariana Newhard
To Tell a Story About the Earth is part scripted play, part guided introduction to devising. The creative team reflects on their development process, which took them to Georgetown University for joyful, interdisciplinary co-creation at the crossroads of new play development, environmental studies, and local activism.
2025 National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation
Friday 13 June 2025
United States
This Roundtable brings together award-winning theatre directors, ensemble leaders, scenographers, and designers in conversation about aesthetics, process, and collaboration across disciplines.
In 2014, Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble embarked on a decade-long project translating and producing Anton Chekhov’s plays. Kate Purdum details how this project used fresh translations and imaginative theatrical landscapes to affirm the playwright’s relevance to contemporary audiences.
In their individual and collective artistic practices, Annalisa Dias and Applied Mechanics model more just and accessible futures for theatre. Their MicroCosmos encounter explores immersive theatremaking, collaborative leadership, and a desire to end the obsession with artistic “vision.”
In ProyectoTEATRO’s Cabarex 2: RevoLUZiones, history is funnier, sexier, and messier than a textbook ever could be. Khristián Méndez Aguirre writes about the production’s queer, devised cabaret take on Latinx culture and history.
Current members of Studio Luna chronicle their twenty-five-year history and the evolution of their practice, programming, and location—most notably from their origin in Chicago to Los Angeles. This was originally recorded live for the 2024 Theatre Communications Group Conference.
You on the Moors Now was the first foray by Jaclyn Backhaus into committing the improvisations and musings of an ensemble to the page while developing her own style. She joins the cast of the show at the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee to talk about the genesis of the play and iterations over time.
Universities and museums are some of the last strongholds of festival circuits providing rare exposure to international and avant-garde artists. This episode explores how ensembles find their way onto such a path, and what these organizations are doing to ensure enrichment for their audiences and sustainability for the acts.
Focusing on the overlaps between Ensemble and Applied Theatre practices, this podcast highlights Mark Weinberg’s work with Theatre of the Oppressed pillar Augusto Boal, collectives, and his growth from director interpreted work to audience generated work.
After beginning her theatrical work by writing for a collective, Deb Margolin has had an expansive solo career. She shares her comedic impulses, political proclivities, and writing process. She takes us through the highs and lows of socially sustainable work as a playwright who best understands her scripts through the body.
Dell’Arte International faced a financial crisis in 2023. They surpassed their fundraising goal by the end of that year. In this episode, former President and CEO Alyssa Hughlett walks us down the path they took that year to rediscover themselves as a school and an ensemble, and reintroduce the company to their community.
In 2023, Pig Iron Theater Company held the National Endowment for the Humanities Preserving and Transmitting American Ensemble-Based Theater Institute. The institute directors look forward to how the next institute might be adjusted and reveal insight on how the University of the Arts closure will impact Pig Iron School.
In 2023, Pig Iron Theater Company held the National Endowment for the Humanities Preserving and Transmitting American Ensemble-Based Theater Institute. The presenters, some interviewed in this episode, provided in depth perspectives on how their ensemble-based processes created connections to a wide variety of audiences.
Eleven participants share their experiences at the 2023 National Endowment for the Humanities Preserving and Transmitting American Ensemble-Based Theater Institute, which highlighted the impact of devised and physical theatre, its application in professional and university settings, and the limited scholarship around it.
More and more theatre departments are incorporating devising into their training. This highly collaborative process allows students to generate their own work, giving them ownership of the final product. Theatre professors Andy Paris (North Carolina School of the Arts) and Emily K. Harrison (Hamilton College) discuss their process, how they engage students, and the benefits of allowing students agency in the creation of their own work.
Students from the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, Palestine talk about cultural resistance and creating in times of crisis.
Saturday 16 March 2024
A dialogue between the Freedom Theatre in Jenin and New York City artists about cultural resistance and a look into Youth Against Invasion, a new storytelling series created by theatre students as part of the rise of civilian journalism covering recent events in Occupied Palestine.
Educator Rainier Pearl-Styles recounts their experience of devising a show in response to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, using tenets of Paolo Freire’s theory of liberatory education. Through recasting, restorying, and restructuring, the participants were able to use Shakespeare as a tool for understanding power and identity.
Amelia Parenteau details the devising process of Intramural Theater, sharing how the company creates a safe and supportive container for artists to tap into their wildest expressions and devise theatre that is wacky, surreal, and layered.
Robert Hubbard reviews Larissa FastHorse’s Wicoun, a transformative story of a teen finding power through gender and cultural identity—with the support of some Lakota superheroes.
Theatremaker Eric Swartz sits down with Rosalba Rolón, co-founder and artistic director of Pregones/PRTT, to discuss ensemble-based theatre, mentorship across generations, and their work to sembrar una semilla—to plant a seed and work to make it grow.
Stewart Pringle, senior dramaturg at the National Theatre, sheds light on the theatre’s Generate program. Jeffrey Mosser and Stewart discuss the problem with the term “literary department,” when to take a risk, and why it’s important that the big fish in the big pond makes the investment in smaller-scale ensemble-based companies.
Artistic director of Belgian theatre company Ontroerend Goed, Alexander Devriendt talks through their process for imagining and developing participatory content. Alexander and Jeffrey Mosser also dig into financing art in Europe, the cost of touring internationally and how COVID has affected it, and sustaining family and art simultaneously.
Culture worker and theatre practitioner Dr. Cristal Chanelle Truscott provides a primer on her SoulWork process, applies it to her present processes, and expands our horizons as artists.
Creatives and book authors Mallory Catlett and Aaron Landsman dig into their new book based on their piece City Council Meeting, an exciting performance, rooted in a commonplace bureaucratic event, that develops dynamic participatory relationships with audiences and local government.
