Framework for Change

Abstract

Founded in 1992, the Saratoga International Theater Institute (SITI Company), under the artistic direction of Anne Bogart, creates theatre pieces in one of three ways. Sometimes the company chooses an existing play to remake, often in ways so radical that the source material is not immediately apparent as the foundational text for the performance. Other times, SITI Company works closely with a playwright to develop a new play in collaboration, using what the group calls “Composition Work” to “write” the piece alongside the playwright in rehearsal. As often, SITI Company “devises” works, original pieces composed solely of either the direct quotation of a number of texts by a single writer (August Strindberg, Anton Chekhov, Virginia Woolf) or the quotation of texts by, or simply regarding, a single figure (Marshall McLuhan, Andy Warhol, Robert Wilson). For many of SITI Company’s devised works in recent years, Irish critic Jocelyn Clarke has shaped the raw written material (compiled by the company in rehearsals) into a script. For SITI Company’s earlier devised works, however, such as The Medium (1993), Small Lives/Big Dreams (1994), Culture of Desire (1997), and Cabin Pressure (1999), Bogart and her company alone handled the scripting of the quoted material as part of their rehearsal process.KeywordsGang MemberCompany MemberSITI CompanyTheatre SceneRehearsal ProcessThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.