“Ensemble-Made Chicago is the visionary theatrician’s cookbook. It bristles with hard-won wisdoms and ways of Chicago-based alchemists who fashion stageworks through collaboration. Chloë and Coya’s roster of performance artists reveal how they create compelling theatre that’s sometimes messy, often soul-stirring, and always rings with authenticity. This book carries a charge, and will surely spark an epiphany or two in the rookie and the vet.” —Cheryl Lynn Bruce
Chloe is the co-author of the book Ensemble-Made Chicago: A Guide to Devised Theater, with Coya Paz Brownrigg, published by Northwestern University Press in 2018.
Ensemble-Made Chicago brings together the work of a wide range of Chicago theater companies to share strategies for cocreating theatrical performance as an ensemble: About Face Youth Theater, Albany Park Theater Project, Barrel of Monkeys, Every house has a door, FEMelanin, 500 Clown, Free Street Theater, Honey Pot Performance, Lookingglass Theater, the Neo-Futurists, Second City, Teatro Luna, the Southside Ignoramus Quartet, and the Young Fugitives.
Assembled from interviews and firsthand observations, the book is written in a lively and accessible style and will serve as an invaluable guide for students and practitioners alike, as well as an important archive of Chicago's vibrant ensemble traditions. Readers will find new creative methods to enrich their own practice and push their work in new directions.
This book was supported in part by The Digital Chicago Project at Lake Forest College, established by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.