History

The Irondale Ensemble Project was founded in 1983 by Jim Niesen, Terry Greiss and Barbara Mackenzie-Wood as an experimental/research theater to further investigate the performance and education techniques that they had developed as resident artists at New Haven's Long Wharf Theatre in the late 1970s. Irondale exists to challenge traditional assumptions about theater--who makes it, how it gets made and how it can be used, all within the context of a permanent ensemble--artists working together, on a daily basis, over an extended period of time. The majority of the company's work follows two closely related performance styles: the presentation of established texts in unorthodox and often irreverent productions; and the creation of new theater works, usually by combining original material with a classic and blending multiple styles of performance, music, dance, design and text. Irondale has produced 40 major Off-Broadway shows including the American Premier of Brecht's Conversations in Exile, radical reinterpretations of Chekhov, Ibsen, Sophocles and Shakespeare, and 11 original works created collaboratively by the company.

Since its inception Irondale, in addition to developing and performing its own theatrical pieces, has conducted extensive programs of educational and social outreach work. These currently consist of workshops in New York City High Schools, the city jail at Riker's Island, and an in-depth Empire State Partnership with P106M in Manhattan. The combination of the company's own daily rehearsal and performance work in conjunction with the para-theatrical use of Irondale techniques as a means of educating, and addressing social issues, has done much to shape the politics of Irondale as a company and to determine the nature and direction of its ongoing experiments.

From 1989 to 1994 Irondale maintained a collaboration with the St. Petersburg Salon Theater of Russia. Irondale and St. Petersburg performed the Uncle Vanya Show in a Joint production in New York City in the fall of 1990, Under the auspices of the Salon Theater, Irondale has traveled three times to Russia, performing in St. Petersburg, Estonia and Siberia. In 1994 Irondale took the Grand Jury Prize at the St. Petersburg International Drama Theater Festival with its original piece You Can't Win.