Elemental Theatre Collective commissions, coerces, solicits and creates new plays. We develop them. And then we produce them. Sometimes we re-work a classic play in a new way, for fun. We are based in Providence, Rhode Island.
Elemental's work is governed by the basic elements of storytelling. From the playwright to the director to the actors to the crew, everyone involved is telling the same story - we believe that if you assemble the right storytellers, everything else falls into place. This is the purpose and the meaning of Elemental Theatre: to tell each story in its most essential and vital form. We ask our audience to question the conventions of storytelling, to consider what is crucial and what is superfluous, and to focus on the elemental.
The seed for Elemental was planted in the fall of 1999, when the Trinity Rep Conservatory Class of 2002 met for the first time in the white box at the top of Trinity Rep. During three years of intensive learning and collaboration, they became a tight-knit group of actors, directors, playwrights and designers, determined to continue their growth together as theater artists after graduation. What started with a one-week summer short play festival in 2004 has blossomed into a 501(c)(3) non-profit collective, dedicated to the creation and production of the next generation of new plays for the American Theater.