ED T H EA

VIS T
E what is it?

RE
D
Basically,
The creation process happens collectively
during the rehearsal process.
The creators are also the performers.
Often referred to as “collective creation”.
Devised Theatre...
Often deals with a political or social issue.
Process is generally: research, creation, development, rehearsal, and
performance.
Non-linear, less “traditional” storytelling and form.
Creators come in with a central question, theme, or issue they want to
explore.
Starting with no script. Creation involves making discoveries from
improvisations. Script develops through this rehearsal process.
 Many Different Types of...
Hierarchies: Sometimes, no director. Other times, director is facilitating the creation.
Sometimes actors are also designers; other times, they just create the script and then
more “traditional” designers are brought it.

Styles: music, dance, movement, non-linear, more traditional

Creation processes: lots of physical improvisation, or brainstorm together/ do solo work/

put it together with the group, collectively create the “story”, but then someone actually
writes it/choreographs it/ composes it/etc.
 XAMPLES
Edo you have any?
 This Is For You, Anna (1983)
Created by: The Anna Project.
Devised by: 5 actors. NO director.
Themes: violence, revenge, domesticity, and questions the roles of
western women at the end of the 20th century.
Initial Inso: The play was inspired by a true event - Marianne Bachmeier
shot the murderer of her seven-year-old daughter, Anna.
Style: Non-linear. Actors playing multiple characters.
“The play makes use of a lyrical poetic style, and live accordion music
is used to accompany frequent musical numbers which help to tell the
story. This music does not work to create a traditionally polished
musical theatre aesthetic. Rather, the music and storytelling create an
ethereal, experimental 'folk' atmosphere characteristic of the early
days of Nightwood Theatre.”[19]
 Quote Unquote Collective
Co-founded by: Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava
Both trained in devised physical theatre.
Work: Mouthpiece, Now You See Her, Universal
Childcare
Canadian multi-disciplinary
performance company that aims to
work outside the boundaries of
tradition and expectation. Engaging
with urgent social and political
themes, the company is founded on
the firm belief that art and
performance are tools to provoke
conversation and change.
MOUTHPIECE (2015)
Summary: Mouthpiece is a two-person play in which both actors play the
same character, Cassandra. Cassandra is a writer who finds out her
mother has just died and must deal with preparations for the funeral. She
must write the eulogy but finds she has lost the ability to speak.The play
takes place in a span of twenty-four hours and is set in present-day
Toronto.
Devised by: 2 PEOPLE (Nostbakken and Sadava)
Involves sound, movement, non-linear storytelling
Initial Idea: “a play about female relationships”
Research: Both researched and discovered the form of the play in the
workshop process.
Development: Not concerned with linear narrative.
Take a theme, or an experience, and finding different ways to
explore it.
Physical sequence, text, a song.
Took 3 years to develop.
NOW YOU SEE HER (2018)
Summary: They are the invisible, the vanishing, and the disappeared. In an
insurrectionary outburst of original music, words, and movement, the six characters in
Now You See Her explore some of the diverse ways women fade from sight in our
culture. They sing, dance, and thrust themselves into the elements as they travel through
the seasons of their lives. Their voices are defiant. Their question is simple: why and how
do we allow our power to disappear without a fight?

Devised by:
6 PEOPLE
co-directed/created/performed/composed by Amy Nostbakken
co-directed/created/performed by Norah Sadava
performed/created by Lisa Karen Cox, Maggie Huculak, Raha Javanfar + Cheyenne
Scott
choreographed by Orian Michaeli
Initial Inspo:
a woman in her sixties came up to us after the show and said, “I don’t remember exactly
when or how it happened, but at a certain age I realized I had become invisible.” This
image struck a chord within us, as did the response from the many women in the music
industry who came to see our play.

Research: how do women disappear? metaphorically and literally? in different

industries? from aging? Racialized women, MMIWG, and more.
UNIVERSAL CHILDCARE (2024)
Summary: Part concert, part theatre play (and self-consciously neither
of those things), the ensemble screams about the lack of affordable
child care and growing inequalities while comparing different
approaches to child care around the globe.
Theme: lack of accessible childcare in wealthy countries
Story co-writers: Akosua Amo-Adem, Vicky Araico, Seiko Nakazawa,
and Stephanie Sourial.
Workshop Devisors: Sturla Alvsvag, Akosua Amo-Adem, Augusto
Bitter, Celia Green, Viktor Lukawski, Kwaku Okyere, Dan Watson
Book: Amy Nostbakken, Norah Sadava
Director, Music & Lyrics: Amy Nostbakken
Choreographer: Orian Michaeli
Cast: Norah Sadava, Monica Garrido, Takako Segawa, Germaine
Konji, Joema Frith, Fiona Sauder, Alex Samaras, Anika Venkatesh.
HAIR (1967)
SUMMARY:
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and
lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado and music by Galt MacDermot. The work
reflects the creators' observations of the hippie counterculture and sexual
revolution of the late 1960s, and several of its songs became anthems of the anti-
Vietnam War peace movement.

Style/Creation Process: More “traditional” that the other examples of devised

theatre, but very untraditional for a popular musical theatre show.

“Devised” in the sense that the composers/writers were part of the cast.
More “traditional” in the sense that there was a director, choreographer, actors
who were “just” actors.
Still.. Experimental director.. Very loose on plot.
When it was revised for Broadway, even looser on the plot.
Director: Tom O'Horgan incorporated a lot of improv games. Many of the
performers’ improvizations were incorporated into the Broadway script.
 EXPERIEN
Y S C
O
E
F LAB
M
UIT OU
R R”
“F
Step 1: brainstorming
Step 2: themes, big ideas
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zZh0Ww-P3HH3mHRYUrM9AkcF727X6XUbOVkqMqHkM8c/edit#slide=id.p

Step 3: central question, “spine” of the piece

Step 4: research
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zcjXc_xsyCIFTlz9vDcDJkKZVDrZ7vGlMGBHQVaUxdE/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18qcVpWPSlpG4mNuxPLTNPIBInUCNaTIwRNI-_RTojxY/edit?usp=sharing

Step 5: development
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1O1v7QozWfHvEAHz3Plnjj5D9-5nFL24Vfj8LmKFxIQc/edit?usp=sharing
 CTIVITY
A
some collective creation!
further reading in
Session 8 Folder