Ensemble and Collaborative Creation: Pig Iron Theatre Company

Collaborative or Ensemble Creation (also known as Derived Theatre) is a form of theatre where the productions are created by a group of people (which usually includes the performers) rather than a writer or writers.

Pig Iron Theatre Company

Pig Iron Theatre Company has been creating ensemble productions for fifteen years. Since 1995, they have produced 23 original works.

Pig Iron’s mission statement is to "create original performance works which test and break the boundaries of dance, drama, clown, puppetry, music, and text; to experiment with form while staying accessible; to develop a physical, theatrical performance technique that draws from many performance traditions; to re-imagine "classics" with both irreverence and a desire to make them relevant; and to reach out to new audiences by redefining theatre as an interdisciplinary art form; to form and maintain an international ensemble of theatre artists that are flexible and forward-thinking; and to pose the difficult questions of our difficult times."

I would describe Pig Iron’s body of work as eclectic. Not a lot of plays involve things like interactive sets and shadow puppet dessert-theatre.

I found short descriptions of each of the plays after our presentation. Here’s a brief list of that:

The Tragedy of Joan of Arc (1998) was a recounting of Joan of Arc’s story, billed as “Greek chorus meets red-nosed clown.”

Mission to Mercury (2000) was “a cabaret-ballet inspired by the rock band Queen.”

Come to My Awesome Fiesta, It’s Going to be Awesome, Okay? (2008) was a “skewed coming-of-age party” that pulled inspiration from quinceñera parties.

Yeah, it’s a really short list…

In addition to the main productions, Pig Iron also does an annual cabaret fundraiser, called “For the Love of Pig Iron.”

Additionally, on their website right now, they’re advertising the Pig Iron Summer Session 2010, a three-week intensive in physical theatre.

Through my research for this project, I think that seeing a Pig Iron production would be pretty cool. Probably highly unusual, but still pretty cool.

Works Cited

"Devised Theatre -." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 26 Jan. 2010. Web.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_creation.
Pig Iron Theatre Company. Web. http://pigiron.org.
"Pig Iron Theatre Company -." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 21 Oct. 2009. Web.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Iron_Theatre_Company.