Allen Kuharski provides a critical summary and expanded framing of the first neh Institute on transmitting and archiving devised physical ensemble theater in American higher education. Kuharski delineates the goals, structure, and planning of the twelve-day gathering of fifty academics, teaching artists, editors, and archivists hosted by him and Quinn Bauriedel of Philadelphia’s Pig Iron Theater Company. The institute’s goal was to provide a platform for longer-term discussions of the historical, theoretical, and critical teaching of devised physical ensemble theater given the proliferation of the teaching of devising practices around the country. Kuharski also places the concerns of the institute within the larger forces challenging contemporary theater, discussing how on the one hand they seem to threaten the historic legacies of such alternative theater practices while on the other these practices may also provide our best future solutions for a vibrant and reformed American live performance practice. The article concludes with an argument for the central role of higher education in the future incubation of an innovative noncommercial American theater.
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