In Sync?
For American ensembles, questions come first - then creativity (cont'd)

3. What is our style?

Because ensembles are small, their approaches tend to be closely aligned with their missions. This helps shape an ensemble's individual style. "There is something unspoken in the way people work together over time that has to do with history," says Tracy Young. "There is a tradition that is part of the Actor's Gang, a way of working that shows up on stage no matter who's doing the work."

The Gang began with a series of workshops in commedia dell'arte, a clear and precise tradition that the Gang members then began juxtaposing onto unlikely source material. Other techniques were added to the mix, but commedia is still an invaluable part of the Gang's development process: "It's from a street-theatre tradition, so it's high stakes," which encourages the actors to make strong choices, according to Young. In keeping with commedia tradition, for example, the actors develop full makeup and costumes for their characters before doing the interior characterization work.

The Gang also encourages its members to keep the barriers between disciplines as low as possible. For their current project, Dream Play, director, actors and designers all conducted extensive research before rehearsals began; then the designers attended rehearsals right alongside the actors.

Bloomsburg has also refined its approach to making original pieces. BTE tends to begin the development process with "a pile of research," according to Laurie McCant. "We have an outline of how it's going to go, but it starts with all this background material that we need to sift." BTE's Hard Coal: Life in the Region was created in this fashion by an ensemble of actors, a choreographer and a composer, drawing from oral histories, interviews and archival research. "We start out going through this material," McCant says, "then small groups will break off to go figure out how to do particular moments." Slowly, the pile is sifted down to story, dialogue, music and staging. The process of working in groups isn't exclusive to BTE's original shows. "Even when we're working on a 'regular' script, the directory will send groups off to work on things, and they bring back what they've found," McCant adds. "Of course, the director ultimately decides."

Roadside begins its development process with three critical questions. First, says Dudley Cocke, the company asks, "What's the next important story the region needs to hear?" Second, since Roadside sometimes employs non-actors as performers, they ask, "Who's available?" and finally, "What are their talents?" Cocke says, "Once we decide those things, we craft the story around the ensemble and its artistic strengths."

In the case of New Ground Revival, the crafting of the play began with what Roadside calls the "story circle," a technique adapted from the Appalachian storytelling tradition. All the performers get in a circle, the playwright presents a theme, and each ensemble member tells stories or plays music or sings a song around that theme. The writer takes the material away as inspiration for the developing script and score, then brings it back to the next story circle, in this way building a show story by story, song by song. Each cast member learns all the roles and has responsibility for the entire story.

Like Roadside, ATJT's process often starts with a question - in relation to the Holocaust, "How could those German-Jewish intellectuals not grasp what was going to happen?" or "What is Kabbalah, and does it mean anything in these times?" "Often," says Corey Fischer, "the question comes from an individual member tossing something into the collective arena, then the process takes over." ATJT's process is based on the ancient rabbinic tradition of midrash, a Hebrew term coming from a root that means "to delve" or "to dig." Says Fischer, "It's not analytical. It's more like coming up with counter-stories." The ensemble applies midrash to sources ranging from modern Yiddish poetry to the assassination of Trotsky, from Kabbalistic mysticism to the conflict in the Middle East. This approach generates pieces that are structured like poetry, with layered and intercut text, music and movement.

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