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| The Performance Group | |
|---|---|
| Name | The Performance Group |
| Founded | 1967 |
| Dissolved | 1980 |
| Location | New York City |
| Founders | Richard Schechner |
| Genre | Experimental theatre |
| Notable works | Dionysus in 69, Commune, Makbeth, Mother Courage and Her Children |
The Performance Group The Performance Group was an experimental theatre collective founded in New York City in 1967 by Richard Schechner. Active through the 1970s, the ensemble produced ensemble-devised adaptations, site-specific events, and politically charged stagings that intersected with movements in Off-Off-Broadway, avant-garde theatre, and performance art. The company became influential in networks linking Theatre of Cruelty, Environmental theatre, and alternative institutions such as La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and The Public Theater.
The Performance Group emerged amid late-1960s ferment in Greenwich Village, where artists associated with The Living Theatre, The Open Theatre, and Joseph Chaikin were reformulating theatrical practice. Under Richard Schechner's direction the ensemble adopted methods drawn from Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski, and Bertolt Brecht, while engaging with contemporary figures like Allan Kaprow and Yvonne Rainer. Early residencies and collaborations took place at venues including The Performing Garage, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and occasional partnerships with Lincoln Center programs. Touring connected the group to festivals in Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Avignon Festival, and regional venues in San Francisco and Chicago. Internal debates over authorship, methodology, and administrative structure paralleled disputes in other collectives such as The Wooster Group and precipitated eventual organizational change.
The repertoire combined ensemble-devised pieces, adaptations of classical texts, and new commissions. Notable productions included an ensemble adaptation of Euripides's Dionysian material titled "Dionysus in 69", which reworked sources from Dionysus myth cycles and attracted attention alongside stagings of Samuel Beckett and Antonin Artaud-inspired pieces. The company staged politically inflected works such as "Commune", drawing on events like the Paris Commune and resonances with protests surrounding the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement. Adaptations of William Shakespeare—including experimental takes on Macbeth—sat alongside reinterpretations of Bertolt Brecht's plays such as Mother Courage and Her Children. The ensemble produced collaborations with playwrights and directors linked to Richard Foreman, Peter Brook, and Jerzy Grotowski, and mounted multimedia events incorporating elements from Fluxus artists and innovators like Nam June Paik.
Leadership centered on Richard Schechner as artistic director, with core ensemble members drawn from a rotating company that included performers who later joined or influenced The Wooster Group, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and academic programs at institutions such as New York University and Rutgers University. Collaborators included directors, designers, and theorists such as Gustaf Metzger, Joan Jonas, and scenographers with ties to Theatre de Complicite and The Royal Shakespeare Company. The company engaged playwrights and performers who intersected with Susan Sontag, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and visual artists active in SoHo and Chelsea. Administrative and production alliances linked the ensemble to producers and funders associated with National Endowment for the Arts, New Dramatists, and local arts councils in New York City.
A hallmark was ensemble-based, process-oriented creation that foregrounded ritual, audience placement, and environmental staging inspired by Jerzy Grotowski and Antonin Artaud. The group pioneered immersive configurations similar to those later attributed to Environmental theatre practices, incorporating improvisation techniques from Keith Johnstone and movement work related to Suzuki Company of Toga methods. Scenic minimalism and found-object design echoed aesthetics from Fluxus and Minimalism movements prominent among artists like Donald Judd and Robert Rauschenberg. Theoretical discourse from members contributed to scholarship alongside texts published by Theatre Communications Group and presentations at conferences hosted by American Society for Theatre Research and Association for Theatre in Higher Education. The group's experiments influenced subsequent ensembles including The Wooster Group, Fifth Column Theatre, and pedagogical approaches at conservatories such as Juilliard School.
Critical response ranged from praise in outlets like The New York Times, Village Voice, and The New Yorker to denunciation in conservative journals reacting to explicit content and disruptive audience interaction. Controversies included disputes over ensemble hierarchy, compensation, and credit that mirrored broader debates at institutions such as Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Bread and Puppet Theater. Legal and ethical questions arose relating to nudity, simulated violence, and consent; these issues engaged municipal regulators in New York City and prompted coverage in national media including Time (magazine) and Newsweek. Schisms within the membership created public debates linking the company to splits observed in The Open Theatre and other collectives.
By 1980 schisms over artistic direction and institutionalization led to a reconstitution of personnel and the formation of successor entities, most prominently The Wooster Group, which inherited methods, personnel, and archival materials. Alumni of the ensemble shaped university programs at New York University, Temple University, and Rutgers University and influenced experimental festivals such as Festival d'Avignon and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The company's scores, production photographs, and notebooks entered collections at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and archives associated with La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. Its legacy persists in contemporary immersive and devised theatre practices practiced by companies like Punchdrunk, SITI Company, and Complicite, and in ongoing scholarship across journals such as TDR (The Drama Review) and publications from Routledge and Cambridge University Press.
Category:Defunct theatre companies in the United States