Double Edge Theatre: Art & Commoning

Matthew Glassman and Carlos Uriona, co-artistic directors of Double Edge Theatre in western Massachusetts, explain how commoning informs the performances and stewardship of their artist-owned ensemble theater company.

About Double Edge Theatre

Double Edge Theatre, an artist-run organization, was founded in Boston in 1982 by Stacy Klein as a feminist ensemble and laboratory of actors’ creative process. The Double Edge Ensemble, led by Artistic Director Klein, along with Co-Artistic Directors Carlos Uriona, Matthew Glassman, Jennifer Johnson, and Producing Executive Director Adam Bright, creates original theatrical performances that are imaginative, imagistic, and visceral. These include indoor performances and site-specific indoor/outdoor traveling spectacles both of which are developed with collaborating visual and music artists through a long-term process and presented on the Farm and on national and international tours. In 1994, Double Edge moved from Boston to a 105-acre former dairy farm in rural Ashfield, MA, to create a sustainable artistic home. Today, the Farm is an International Center of Living Culture and Art Justice, a base for the Ensemble’s extensive international touring and community spectacles, with year-round theatre training, performance exchange, conversations and convenings, greening and sustainable farming initiatives. DE facilities include two performance and training spaces, production facilities, offices, archives, music room, and 5 outdoor performance areas, as well as an animal barn, vegetable gardens, and two additional properties: housing in the center of town for resident artists and DE’s Artist Studio, giving primacy to African American and Latinx artists; and a design house, with design offices, studios, costume shop, and storage for sets, costumes, and props.