Wild Theater Collective: Origins & Work
The Wild Theater Collective began as the desire to connect through creativity and joy. Formed by Northern New York artists who were craving spaces that honored intuition, community care, and the natural world, the Collective received funding from NYSCA Individual Artists' grant to create their first show: What the Trail Calls Us.
What the Trail Calls us was rooted in ecological thinking, embodied research, and collaborative authorship. Our process blurs boundaries between performer and audience, rehearsal and ritual, text and landscape. Working across the geography of New york State we individually built performance pieces, and shared in structured listening practices—listening to the land, to each other’s lived experiences, and to the emergent questions arising from the group.
Given the skillsets of the Wild Theater Collective, our first show featured large puppets, a collective song, movement, zines, and poetry. Our beginning was wild in the best sense of the word (untamed, emergent, ever-growing) and that wildness continues to be the heart of our work today.
In 2026, in collaboration with Big Spoon Kitchen, WTC created its second show, Table is Set, an intimate dinner-theatre experience about reunion, memory, and the strange comedy of gathering again. Performed in homes and community spaces, the piece invited audiences to sit at the table as guests rather than spectators. With shared food, live performance, and playful audience interaction, Table is Set explored what rises to the surface when people who used to know each other, or know each other virtually, eat together: old stories, unfinished business, laughter, tenderness, and a whole lot of photographs. The work carried forward our interest in making theatre that feels close to the body, rooted in place, and alive to the unpredictability of real human connection.
We are always looking to work with new collaborators, so please reach out if you'd like to be involved!
The Wild Theater Collective began as the desire to connect through creativity and joy. Formed by Northern New York artists who were craving spaces that honored intuition, community care, and the natural world, the Collective received funding from NYSCA Individual Artists' grant to create their first show: What the Trail Calls Us.
What the Trail Calls us was rooted in ecological thinking, embodied research, and collaborative authorship. Our process blurs boundaries between performer and audience, rehearsal and ritual, text and landscape. Working across the geography of New york State we individually built performance pieces, and shared in structured listening practices—listening to the land, to each other’s lived experiences, and to the emergent questions arising from the group.
Given the skillsets of the Wild Theater Collective, our first show featured large puppets, a collective song, movement, zines, and poetry. Our beginning was wild in the best sense of the word (untamed, emergent, ever-growing) and that wildness continues to be the heart of our work today.
In 2026, in collaboration with Big Spoon Kitchen, WTC created its second show, Table is Set, an intimate dinner-theatre experience about reunion, memory, and the strange comedy of gathering again. Performed in homes and community spaces, the piece invited audiences to sit at the table as guests rather than spectators. With shared food, live performance, and playful audience interaction, Table is Set explored what rises to the surface when people who used to know each other, or know each other virtually, eat together: old stories, unfinished business, laughter, tenderness, and a whole lot of photographs. The work carried forward our interest in making theatre that feels close to the body, rooted in place, and alive to the unpredictability of real human connection.
We are always looking to work with new collaborators, so please reach out if you'd like to be involved!
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