Serious Play Theatre Ensemble

SERIOUS PLAY THEATRE ENSEMBLE works toward reshaping society’s conversation on prominent social issues through the art of ensemble theatre. We strive to inspire curiosity, to challenge, tantalize and engage audiences, and to attract audiences back to the power of the live moment. 

#GIVING TUESDAY has always been a day of global generosity. It is a global movement with local impact. This #GIVING TUESDAY, Serious Play is setting our fundraising goal at $3,000. We celebrate our 30+ years as a vital part of the Valley community, and we pledge to work toward creating the future we all want to see, fostering empathy and hope through ensemble theatre. 

With the challenges our country is now facing, non-profit theatres are needed more than ever to keep the conversations going! 

Please consider a $30 tax-deductible donation, celebrating the 30 years (1995-2025) that Serious Play has been bringing Valley audiences provocative theatre. 

Please DONATE on #GIVING TUESDAY to help support Serious Play as we face dark and challenging times for the arts. We will need to work harder than ever, and we will. We welcome new donors, thank continuing supporters and embrace collaboration. Reach out to us with exciting ideas.

“It is the artists who will create a livable future through their ability to articulate in the face of flux and change.” 

-- Anne Bogart, A Director Prepares

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Serious Play continues our interest in forging international connections which began to take shape after our participation in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2005, which reawakened our awareness of the intrinsic value of culture and the social impact of theatre on civic pride. Serious Play has created evocative collaborative theatre productions for 29 years, investigating the collision of theatre, social justice and physicality, toward an in-depth explorations of the art of ensemble theatre. As we move forward, we want to continue doing so, while taking our own work beyond the borders of our hometown and bringing non-local artists and productions to Western Massachusetts. With your support, we can continue forging the national and international connections that we have already begun building, in order to magnify and diversify the creative exchange in the Connecticut River Valley, our home.

WE WILL BE BACK IN OUR EASTWORKS STUDIO THIS WINTER & SPRING-Experimenting with new” tiny stage, confined space” performance ideas, requiring a precise and tightly focused physical vocabulary, and relying on actors’ bodies, images and narrative, rather than elaborate set or props. Serious Play is going small but going deep!

Onlookers poured through the halls and stopped in to our studio, to observe our demonstrations, during the Eastworks Open Studios in Easthampton November 1-2.  It was heartwarming to see the interest in our Serious Play physical theatre actor training demonstrations- both Stage Combat with Poles and Basic Suzuki Actor Training exercises.

There was enough solid interest, to decide to offer both types of physical actor training as Weekend Workshops again (after a six-year hiatus) starting in March 2026. JOIN our email list. Send your email address to seriousplaytheatre@gmail.com or join through our website at seriousplay.org.