JOHN COLLINS.
award-winning director and Founder and Artistic Director of Elevator Repair Service.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY.
John Collins is the founder and artistic director of Elevator Repair Service (ERS), a New York City-based ensemble that creates original works for live theater. A native of Vidalia, Georgia, Collins graduated cum laude from Yale in 1991, with a B.A. in Theater Studies and English Literature.
Under Collins’ direction, Elevator Repair Service builds theater performances from a variety of sources that include found text, amateur video, film, literature, and ensemble-generated choreography. Finished productions clash high-tech and low-tech design and mix disparate texts and forms to create live performances that are propelled by humor, narrative, pathos, and controlled chaos. ERS has cultivated a large following in New York and throughout the United States, Europe, and Australia.
As artistic director of ERS, John has directed or co-directed over seventy domestic and international productions of fifteen original full-length ERS works. Recent work includes Gatz (New York premiere at The Public Theater, 2010), The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928) (New York Theatre Workshop, 2008), and The Sun Also Rises (premiering at The Edinburgh International Festival in 2010).
ARTIST INTERVIEW.
Stay tuned for the interview, to be released on April 13.
"Whatever we’re doing, we always want it to feel like there’s something underneath it. When something feels funny in an easy way, it’s a sure sign that we’re not doing enough... So we’ll look for a way to undercut it or give the impression that there’s more to it... We like a kind of humor that suggests something crazy and complicated and mysterious.
Audience members are engaged by a
VIVID THEATRICAL REALITY...
- THE NEW YORK TIMES
GALLERY.
Discover photos and videos from John's work.
CREDITS: ULYSSES, photos by Maria Baranova; headshot courtesy of the artist; ARGUENDO, photo by Joan Marcus; video courtesy of the artist; TOTAL FICTIONAL LIE, photo by John Collins; EVERYBODY'S FINE WITH VIRGINIA WOOLF, photo by Joan Marcus; MEASURE FOR MEASURE, pictured: Pete Simpson and Rinne Groff, photo by Richard Termine
TOTAL FICTIONAL LIE, Colleen Werthmann, Leo Marks, Susie Sokol, Rinne Groff, photo by Mary Gearhart.