Performing Communities: Grassroots Ensemble Theaters Deeply Rooted in Eight U.S. Communities

Ensemble theater is one of the hottest American performance forms today. It's more than art - it's a movement. Case studies and play excerpts from eight well-established community-based groups define a genre of theater that arises from and empowers the grassroots. ADVANCE PRAISE FOR PERFORMING COMMUNITIES "If you care about theater in America - any kind of theater, really, whether it's slick commercial stuff or the funky avant-garde or street-theater activism - you should get to know the remarkable folks in this book. They're a special breed."--Jim O'Quinn, editor, American Theatre magazine, New York "With the contemporary world ablaze in "culture wars" along comes a book describing the work and philosophy of theater artists whose artistic excellence is sharpened by their relationship with the life of communities. Making sure that theater is meaningful, important, and useful - while still maintaining high standards for artistry and stagecraft - these artists make a clear case for the power of artmaking in the context of local lives and stories.">"Community-based arts provide the forum for examining community values, organizing community resources and empowering the spirit of the community. In Performing Communities, we see the common thread - art is community and communities are transformed by their art.">"One of the most important things about art is that it's constantly holding people's aspirations in front of them. And in that sense, John Malpede's work [Los Angeles Poverty Department] is profoundly transformative because it's inviting both the performers and the audience to reach towards something that they thought was not achievable and that requires enormous courage and personal commitment to achieve. You're watching performers in the process of raising the bar in their own lives and that asks the audience to make the same gesture."--Peter Sellars, director