Ensemble is a term often applied to a grouping of performers or theatre-makers, preferably with a extended professional commitment, working either as part of an individual performance or as part of an established company. In the ensemble, performers work as a team with the group agenda being of foremost importance. Ensemble companies grew in direct opposition to a ‘star’-driven production system in the early decades of the twentieth century. In this model the production was subservient to the talents or needs of individuals as opposed to being a group work. A number of modernist practitioners and theatre organisations – such as Konstantin Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre, Bertolt Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble, and Vsevolod Meyerhold – wanted to develop ensemble companies as a means of creating a committed group working through an agreed system of training, sharing similar ideological beliefs and aesthetic preferences. A number of long-lasting ensemble companies developed in the latter half of the twentieth century, including Odin Teatret, the Wooster Group and Goat Island.

Image: Photograph © Marcella Fava, 2011