Network of Ensemble Theaters

Network of Ensemble Theaters A national community of artists and arts organizations dedicated to collaborative creation

From our friends at Cooperatives for Creatives [Online]! Tired of capitalism? Try cooperation! Learn about the fundamen...
04/28/2026

From our friends at

Cooperatives for Creatives [Online]!

Tired of capitalism? Try cooperation! Learn about the fundamentals of cooperatives and how they can help you meet your creative needs.

Who is this workshop for?
The Co-op Curious - Any individual or group that is curious to learn more about cooperatives in theory and in practice.

Community Builders - People who value the things we can do together, that we can’t do alone.

Irrepressable Artists - Artists who have felt the pain of our current economic systems, and know that something better must be out there.

After years of participating in an unjust economy, artists and culture bearers are searching for viable alternatives to the traditional models of cultural production. Cooperatives and the solidarity economy are gaining traction as a values-aligned solution. But what’s the difference between a worker-owned cooperative and a purchasing cooperative? Is an ensemble a cooperative? Is talking about ownership inherently capitalist? In this workshop, participants will learn about the fundamentals that define cooperatives and how they differ from other types of collectives, explore case studies of cooperatives in the arts and culture sector, and brainstorm how a cooperative could meet their needs and the needs of their communities. Participants are welcome to join as individuals or alongside their collaborators, and will receive resources for further study into various cooperative models.

Date: Monday, 5/4/2026

Time: 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM ET

Location: Zoom

REGISTER NOW AT obvious-agency.com

03/26/2026

NETWeek Chicago starts in the body.

Before the conversations about power, before the cooperative infrastructure, before the public record: the body in a room, moving together.

Today. Alice da Cunha ( ) of brings Jacques Lecoq’s “platform” style to in Humboldt Park. Small groups. Tiny space. Epic stories built from your body, your voice, and your imagination.

Mime, dance, music, precision, and a whole lot of fun.

Open to all levels. Wear clothes you can move in.

Physical Theater 101: Big Stories in Small Spaces
Thursday, March 26 | 12-2 PM CT
| Humboldt Park, Chicago
Part of NETWeek Chicago | Code Chicago100 waives the $25 fee

Link in bio.

Isolation is a weapon. Relationship is the resource.

Let’s move the knowledge out together on 3/27 at GROUND FLOOR.Three practitioners. Three practices. One room.Friday at ,...
03/25/2026

Let’s move the knowledge out together on 3/27 at GROUND FLOOR.

Three practitioners. Three practices. One room.

Friday at , ( ) brings decades of q***r community-centered performance. ( ) brings ensemble devising rooted in immigrant and working-class communities. SK Kerastes brings the craft of building spaces that hold people in connection, including stewarding Links Hall through its final chapter.
They open up their practice and invite you into theirs. Then the room takes over. That’s how ensemble works. Someone starts. Everyone builds.

Ground Floor | Friday, March 27 | 2-4 PM CT
| Chicago
Part of NETWeek Chicago | Code Chicago100 waives the $25 fee

Link in bio.

Isolation is a weapon. Relationship is the resource.

Collective power is being dismantled everywhere right now. The ability to organize. The ability to decide together. The ...
03/20/2026

Collective power is being dismantled everywhere right now. The ability to organize. The ability to decide together. The ability to hold disagreement and still build something. That capacity is under attack, and most of the country doesn’t have a practice for it.

Ensemble practitioners do.

Our field has spent decades trying to prove that the plays are what matter. That the art is the catalyst for change. The art matters. It is essential to our humanity. But what ensemble practitioners own and carry is far older, far bigger, and far more liberating than any piece of ephemeral art. It is the discipline of making decisions together. Sharing power. Building across difference. Holding complexity without collapsing. Staying in the room when it would be easier to leave.

That’s the muscle for democracy. And it’s being trained every time a group of people commits to collective creation instead of handing their power up.

The people who carry this methodology have been carrying it for generations. Under-resourced. Unnamed. Building the capacity this country needs in rooms this country doesn’t fund.

We’re pulling this thread all month. Next week we pull it in person.

NETWeek Chicago. March 22-28. Four rooms. One Arc. ensembletheaters.net/netweek-chicago

$25. Waiver codes for anyone who needs one.

Bring your body, your voice, and your imagination toPhysical Theater 101: Big Stories in Small Spaces, a workshop by of...
03/20/2026

Bring your body, your voice, and your imagination to
Physical Theater 101: Big Stories in Small Spaces, a workshop by of at in Humboldt Park 3.26.26

Here’s what you can expect: Learn Jacques Lecoq’s “platform” style: small groups creating epic, larger-than-life stories in the tiniest possible space. Mime, dance, music, precision, and a whole lot of fun. Open to all levels. Wear clothes you can move in and come ready to play.

NETWeek Chicago kicks off Thursday with four rooms across four days: body work, cooperative infrastructure, practice exchange, and six Black women who shaped Chicago theater speaking on the permanent record. 

Thursday, March 26 | 12-2 PM | Humboldt Park, Chicago is Room #1. 

Part of NETWeek Chicago | $25 full week | Waivers available

Register now | Link in bio.

Isolation is a weapon. Relationship is the resource.

$15,000. That’s the median lifetime retirement savings for artists in this country. No health insurance. No pension. No ...
03/19/2026

$15,000. That’s the median lifetime retirement savings for artists in this country. No health insurance. No pension. No safety net underneath the people building the stages, the programs, the rooms this city celebrates.

We keep calling it passion. We think its the cost of doing what we love. It’s a policy failure.

The Federation Table is a working breakfast series launching in Chicago where cultural workers, labor organizers, and cooperative builders sit at the same table and start designing what should already exist: portable benefits, shared purchasing, mutual aid infrastructure for the people who make this work possible. This is part of our larger Federation Pilot Initiative and we are actively seeking new members of a growing coalition.

Breakfast is on NET. Bring what you know. Be ready to ask for what you need.

Friday, March 27 | 10 AM - 12 PM
| Chicago

Part of NETWeek Chicago | $25 full week | Waivers available

Register now | Link in bio.

Isolation is a weapon. Relationship is the resource.

Get In On The Ground Floor 3/27/26. This NETWeek Chicago event is designed to move knowledge between Chicago’s ensemble ...
03/18/2026

Get In On The Ground Floor 3/27/26. This NETWeek Chicago event is designed to move knowledge between Chicago’s ensemble makers and theater practitioners.

Across two hours four makers share what’s alive in their practice and invite you to do the same: from the craft you’ve been sharpening to the partnerships you’ve been hungry for.

Get in the room with the practitioners whose work you’ve been watching from across this city. Carve out some sacred space with from , from , SK Kerastes and more.

The room is yours.

Friday, March 27 | 2-4 PM
| Chicago

Part of NETWeek Chicago | $25 full week | Waivers available

Register now | Link in bio.

Isolation is a weapon. Relationship is the resource.

Ensemble practice is older than the systems that defund it.The circle. Collective storytelling. Shared decision-making. ...
03/16/2026

Ensemble practice is older than the systems that defund it.

The circle. Collective storytelling. Shared decision-making. These are indigenous practices, ancient and global, that existed long before any institution tried to replace them with hierarchy.

Chicago knows this in its bones. Hull House in 1889, teaching immigrant communities to survive through collective making. in 1969, Black artists building what every mainstage in the city refused to offer them taking work into housing projects and parks and empty lots, reaching the 90% of this city that never set foot in a theater.

These practices are still with us because the need for them is still with us. The need to gather is still with us. We are makers. We tell the stories that aren’t being told. We build the rooms that don’t exist yet. Because this is how we stay whole.

There’s more to this story. A lot more. We’re pulling the thread all month.

If you want to be in the room where this practice lives: NETWeek Chicago. March 22-28. A week of practitioners carrying this forward.

$25. Waiver codes for anyone who needs one

Link in bio | http://ensembletheaters.net/netweek-chicago

What do Black women directors and ensemble leaders know that the field needs to hear?Jackie Taylor. Ericka Ratcliff . L...
03/10/2026

What do Black women directors and ensemble leaders know that the field needs to hear?

Jackie Taylor. Ericka Ratcliff . Lili-Anne Brown . J. Nicole Brooks . Miranda Gonzalez . Five of many who shaped Chicago theater. On March 28 they go On Record: speaking directly about what it takes to build legacy in a city and an industry that celebrates you and forgets to sustain you, live on TV, facilitated by the inimitable Carmen Morgan of .

But On Record is not where the week stops.

NETWeek Chicago is a full week of practitioners in rooms together. Physical theater workshop with . A working breakfast on cooperative economics for cultural workers. Storefronts and ensembles in direct exchange at Ground Floor.

Chicago built the rooms we’re walking into. Storefront theaters practicing collective intelligence in rooms that cost more to heat than most grants will cover. This week exists because of what they built.

March 22-28. $25 registration. Waiver codes available for anyone who needs one.
ensembletheaters.net/netweek-chicago

Isolation is a weapon. Relationship is the resource.

In partnership with

10/08/2025

Truths landing, drums and movement echoing from breakout sessions as artist and organizers reconnect. The exchange of embraces, the exchange of energy and the exchange of strategies. These sounds and all of the delicious resonances of is reminding us that we build together. Each sound, each spark a thread in our collective weaving.

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New Orleans, LA

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