by @dramatistsguild member Krista Knight @playtrixx

Devised Theatre means entering the room with the performer-writers on the first day of rehearsal or the first day of creating the script.

I’m a playwright who works with devised material – as opposed to a true devisor of theatre. I make the distinction because my process is undoubtedly different than that of the purists.

Nine times out of ten, when I’m being commissioned to write a play, it’s for a specific company of performers. It’s my job to create prompts that spark the imagination, to observe the performers in exercises, and to lead discussions about what excites the company.

Creating plays with young people is perhaps the closest I come to writing performance art. Especially with younger kids, I find that no matter what character I craft, the child performer’s essence will shine brightest. I create story vessels for the performers to amplify their particular behaviors/deportment within.

For the last few year’s I’ve been commissioned by Berkeley Rep School of Theatre to adapt fairy tales and Greek myths for middle school and high school actors respectively. Especially when devising work with a large group, I find a story template provides useful structure, something we can all gather around and riff off of collectively.

One of the first writing prompts I give is asking the cast to come up with new motivations for protagonist decisions and new backstories for antagonists. In this way, we begin to find our way into these classic/familiar stories and take collective ownership over them.

In the midst of exercises and games and prompts and improvs and individual writing, a spark of an idea for how to structure the piece always emerges. Every time I go into a devised process, I’m terrified that it won’t, but so far the gods of collective creation have been friendly. Sometimes it’s in one idea refuting another, sometimes it’s in a joke or exaggeration, sometimes it’s in an actor pulling me aside and whispering an intuition.

A pleasure of devising work with a company is a shared sense of ownership, and responsibility. (Yes – I do use the children as an excuse for bizarre twists and turns, even if I wouldn’t have it any other way). It isn’t always an easy balance – captaining the script ship and being open to a plethora of ideas and directions – but it’s often the most satisfying way to build the blocks of performance.

KRISTA KNIGHT’s work includes Primal Play (New Georges), Salamander Leviathan (Joe’s Pub, Ars Nova, Inkwell), Clementine And The Cyber Ducks (The Assembly, Hangar Theatre), and Phantom Band (The Claque, Voice and Vision, Dixon Place). Residencies at UCROSS, Yaddo, and MacDowell. BA: Brown University. MA: Performance Studies from NYU. MFA: UCSD. Page 73 Playwriting Fellow. Shank Fellow at the Vineyard Theatre. www.KristaKnight.com