 The Meiningen Ensemble stands at the beginning of the new movement toward unified production (or what Richard Wagner would call the "Gesamtkunstwerk") and the rise of the director (at the expense of the actor) as the dominant artist in theatre-making.The Meiningen Ensemble traveled throughout Europe from 1874–1890 and met with unparalleled success wherever they went.Audiences had grown tired with regular, shallow entertainment theatre and were beginning to demand a more creatively and intellectually stimulating form of expression that the Ensemble was able to provide.