Creative Lineage

Roots & Rhizomes of our Process

How did ISC Santa Fe end up working the way we work, with 4-5 day rehearsal processes incorporating 400-year-old original practices and cutting-edge ensemble-building techniques?

In 2018, the ISC’s first year of producing theatre with a predominantly Santa Fe-based cast and production team, we had the pleasure and honor of bringing out Shakespearean actor, practitioner, and author Ben Crystal from the UK. He taught a series of acting workshops, was the special guest for the ISC/Upstart Crows jointly produced Youth Shakespeare Festival, and gave a public talk on Shakespeare. Ben and Ariana Karp (ISC Artistic Director) got on like a house on fire and connected on their shared Shakespeare nerdery.

The Shakespeare Ensemble 2019 Japan Tour. From top left: Hiroaki Kurata, Andrew Codispoti, Matthew Bentley, Tim Jacobs, Dan Beaulieu, Ariana Karp. From bottom left: Antonia Weir, Ben Crystal, Drew Ernhout, and Dylan Kammerer.

Starting in 2016, Ben had worked with Dan Beaulieu and Seven Stages Shakespeare Company in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with whom Andrew Codispoti had been collaborating deeply for several years. Ben and Andrew hit it off and found common ground and deep synergy in their respective artistic toolboxes.

Bringing together The Shakespeare Ensemble for the first time, Ben curated and produced a four-week tour of Japan in 2019, which Andrew and several other Seven Stages Shakespeare Company-associated creatives helped to produce and facilitate.

Ariana and Andrew were actors in the Japan tour ensemble, playing Romeo and Juliet, respectively, and formed a deep collaborative partnership. They both worked with Seven Stages, The Shakespeare Ensemble, and Theater in the Open thereafter, including on the Ensemble’s web- and video-based efforts during 2020-2022.

Bringing some of the creative tools and techniques that she had learned and practiced on The Shakespeare Ensemble’s tour of Japan, Ariana incorporated them into the processes for ISC Santa Fe’s 2021 and 2022 seasons. The tools worked to build stronger ensembles and facilitate deeper and more open communication in the rehearsal processes.

In 2023 Ariana brought Andrew to Santa Fe to co-facilitate ISC’s first season of ensemble-led, 4-5 day process productions of Richard III and their two-person show, Shakespeare’s Duets: Turn & Change. Since then, ISC’s company, leadership, and associate artists have continued to develop and experiment in this mode of ensemble-led “contemporary original practices.” Each year we make changes to our creative process based on feedback from the previous season. Our process is a living, breathing, changing part of us — we know there is no such thing as a perfect process and in each production we strive to improve the support for our actors, designers, and production teams so they can embrace the challenges.

Core collaborators to the development of our specific ISC process include Associate Artists:

Mairi Chanel, Andrew Codispoti, Edward Daranyi, Lynn Goodwin, Joshua Caleb Horton, Breshaun-Birene Joyner, Ariana Karp (Artistic Director), Alexander Lane, Amy Meilander, Geoffrey Pomeroy, Emily Rankin, and Clara West.

Additionally, ensemble actors from the past four Seasons have been integral contributors to our creative process:

Alejandro Amundah, Miles Blitch, Varda Cooley-Winters, Anna Dempf, Caryl Farkas, Dan Friedman, Nick Anthony Goodwin, Scott Harrison, Jane Henzerling, Caitlin Kelly, Hazel King, Hannah Machado, Terrance MacNamara, Isabel Madley, Ali Esmeralda Marin, Riley Samuel Merritt, Jonah Scott Mendelsohn, Liam Mitchell, Greg Pierot, Rylie Philpot, Danielle Louise Reddick, James Alex Reid, Noah Segard, and Chance Willey.

Our aesthetics, design, and production team ethos have been built by contributions from:

Emily Breitbach (stage management), Zoe Burke (intimacy coordination, social media management, Associate Artistic Director), Mairi Chanel (intimacy coordination, social media), Andrew Codispoti (production facilitation), Jack Entwisle (sound board operation), Vince Faust (set design, production coordination), Andrew Fearnside (costume and props design and construction, design associate-masks and headpieces) John Flax (ensemble movement training), Caitlyn Fox (costume consultant and management), Ian Gonzales (sound board operation), Gigi Guajardo (costume design and construction), Ariana Karp (production facilitation, abstract intimacy and violence development, sound design, costume, set, and props work), Natasha Karp (graphics design and marketing lead), Liam Mitchell (stage management, sound and light board operation), Rylie Philpot (lighting design, sound and light board operation), Geoffrey Pomeroy (music composition and performance), Alexandra Pontone (lighting design), Max Rogers (sound and light board operation), Katrin Talbot (photography, videography, print design, social media), and Kate Udall (ensemble voice training).

Sibling Ensembles and Companies

The companies below have incorporated tools, techniques, processes, and philosophies drawn from the Passion in Practice/Seven Stages Shakespeare Company/Shakespeare Ensemble lineage into their approaches to Shakespeare (and other drama). They also frequently “cross-polinate” as individual actors and theatre-makers work with many of the companies exploring this shared creative space.

At 2026 Shakespeare Theatre Association Artistic & Education Practicon, hosted by Shakespeare by The Sea. Artists from The Bridge Ensemble, Cod & Karp Productions, Elsewhere Shakespeare, Incite Shakespeare Company Santa Fe, The Shakespeare Ensemble, Theater in the Open, and Vicious Mole Theatre Collective. From left to right: Andrew Codispoti, Mairi Chanel, Ariana Karp, Mac MacDaniel, Katie Mixon, Ben Crystal, Edward Speck.

Tools, Techniques, and Influences

For the truly curious (or geeky), here are many of the particular tools we use in our processes as well as “lineage” information on how these practices came to us.

“Quick-raise” process

Ben Crystal (Passion in Practice, The Shakespeare Ensemble, The Bridge Ensemble)

Process Container Practices

Responsive design process

Seven Stages Shakespeare Company (Dan Beaulieu, Tim Jacobs, Christine Penney et al)

Elizabethan/Jacobean Original Practices

All curated and researched by Ben Crystal & Passion in Practice, also by Andrew Codispoti (cue-script) and for scrolls Will Sutton (via Andrew Codispoti), and Tiffany Stern via Edward Speck

  • Booke Holder

  • Cue-Script

  • Cue-scripts on Scrolls

  • Fights & Dances

  • Platts

Physical Theatre & Dance Tools

  • Passing Through - adapted from David Zambrano, thru Ben Crystal & Andrew Codispoti, also via Jennifer Jackson

  • Stick Work - Bamboo sticks and wooden dowels, Ben Crystal via Complicité & Lecoq

    • Partner Sticks 

    • Group Sticks 

    • Solo Stick 

  • Spatial Relationships & Non-verbal Communication - Jennifer Jackson via Ben Crystal & Passion in Practice

    • Push Pull Yield Resist 

    • Snowglobe 

    • Gathering and Sending

  • Laban Movement Psychology - LAMDA - James Kemp (via Ariana Karp)

  • Physical Storytelling - LAMDA - Michael Brown (via Ariana Karp)

  • Ensemble Movement techniques - John Flax, Artistic Director of Theater Grottesco

Abstract Intimacy and Violence

Seven Stages Shakespeare Company (Dan Beaulieu, Tim Jacobs et al), The Shakespeare Ensemble, Ariana Karp

Intimacy Practices

Mairi Chanel, Zoe Burke, Sean Boyd

Textual Analysis

Richard DiPrima and Young Shakespeare Players (via Ariana Karp)

Verb Through

Seven Stages Shakespeare Company (Dan Beaulieu)

Vocal Training & Health

LAMDA - Judith Phillips, George Richmond-Scott (via Ariana Karp), Kate Udall