Something from Nothing

Learn the process of creating an ensemble-based work of theatre through Pig Iron’s tried-and-true creation processes. Participants will be given performance assignments: themes, stories, characters, even a piece of music which must be solved as an ensemble. The playwriting and directing duties will be shared among the ensemble, and decisions will be made collaboratively.
This workshop emphasizes generating original material, physicalizing characters and theatrical ideas, structuring group improvisations into finished pieces and the role music and rhythm play in theatrical creation. Participants will work on taking material developed through improvisation and turning it into pieces that are precise, full, exuberant, and moving. The workshop will culminate in an open showing of short works created over the course of the program.

Quinn Bauriedel is a co-founder and Co-Artistic Director of Pig Iron Theatre Company. Quinn is a graduate of Swarthmore College and Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, and has performed in nearly all of Pig Iron’s original works. In addition to his teaching work with the company, Quinn also teaches at Swarthmore and at the Headlong Performance Institute.

Pig Iron Theatre Company, forged in 1995 to push the boundaries of what live performance could be, is a multidisciplinary ensemble based in Philadelphia. The company has created over 25 original works over the past 16 years, performed both locally and internationally. The company have been called “one of the few companies taking theatre in new directions” in The New York Times, and has received numerous awards for their work, including 9 Barrymore awards and an OBIE Award (2004-Hell Meets Henry Halfway). In 2010 co-artistic directors Gabriel Quinn Bauriedel, Dan Rothenberg, and Dito van Reigersberg won a Fellow award granted by Unites States Artists.