FIASCO THEATER

Founded in 2009,

is a critically acclaimed, award-winning ensemble theater company based in NYC.

FIASCO’S MISSION

Our mission is to offer dynamic, joyful, actor-driven productions, and the highest quality, accessible, affordable training
for emerging artists. 

We create deliberate, text-based experiences with an emphasis on musicality and language, delighting audiences of seasoned theatergoers and newcomers alike.

Fiasco Theater is an ensemble theater company based in NYC. The co-artistic directors of Fiasco met in graduate school during the first years of the Brown/Trinity MFA acting program. We connected through discussing how actor training and collaboration work best; together, we sought to define what makes for the most effective, exciting rehearsal. At Brown we wore many hats in our collaborations, as actors, directors and writers. After school we wanted to keep working this way: as an ensemble of artists with a shared vocabulary and love of making great theater through dynamic rehearsal. Fiasco was born out of that desire.

We have a non-hierarchical leadership structure with 3 ADs sharing power; our classes and productions often have co-teachers and co-directors, modeling collaboration and multiple perspectives, inviting ensemble members to bring their holistic selves to the conversation.

Fiasco produces annual programming in four categories:

  • We are presented by partner theaters

  • We produce stripped-down, actor-driven productions through our new series Without a Net

  • We develop new work through year-round readings and workshops (free and open to the public)  

  • We conduct education programs, including Master Classes, our Free Training Initiative and our Conservatory program. 

ABOUT FIASCO

We believe in the

power of ensemble.

Storytelling is an act of collective imagination. When everyone in the room has investment and ownership of what is being made, we can create something that is more dynamic than one person could build on their own. We view the audience as an important and necessary part of the team - we join together to imagine together. We have a shared leadership structure with three Artistic Directors. Our classes and productions often have co-teachers and co-directors, modeling collaboration and multiple perspectives, inviting ensemble members to bring their holistic selves to the conversation.

We center actors.

We strive to create rehearsal processes and educational spaces that put actors at the center of the work, giving them agency and empowering them to pursue growth bravely and safely. We reject the notion that art making or training should ever be equated to suffering.

We create accessible

and supportive spaces.

We reject an industry culture of discrimination, low-wages, unreasonable time-demands, and lack of support for artists. We prioritize living wages, financial aid, and a humane work schedule. We recognize that our industry systematically oppresses and disadvantages BIPOC artists, teachers, and students, and that Fiasco must do much more to translate these values into concrete antiracist systems in order to better support our BIPOC colleagues. We are beginning a process in January 2021, led by an incredible team of facilitators from Groundwater Arts, to interrogate our implicit and explicit values through a lens of community accountability and decolonization, ensuring that our future is built upon a foundation that is truly equitable in practice.

We pursue joy.

Joy is a foundational part of everything we create and teach. Joy is also tangibly linked to our priority of paying artists a living wage and making training affordable for students; it is difficult to pursue this work joyfully if you cannot pay your rent. For an artist to create something meaningful for an audience and sustain a life long term, it is as important to cultivate pleasure as it is to build practical skills and acquire aesthetic techniques.

WHY “FIASCO”

Legend has it the word “fiasco” was first used to describe commedia dell’arte performances that went horribly (and hilariously) wrong. While we hope to avoid on-stage disasters, we believe that it is only when artists are brave enough to risk a fiasco that there is the possibility of creating something special. We chose the name Fiasco to remind ourselves to brave the huge leaps in the hopes of discovering huge rewards.