about ERA
Equally Represented Arts is an experimental theatre company based in St. Louis, Missouri.
Theatre is a collaborative, multi-disciplinary, live art form. ERA's mission is to use the elements unique to theatre's identity to expand the possibilities for what that art form can be and challenge our community's expectations for meaning in theatre, art, and the world. We root ourselves in the belief that all theatre's components are equal and that innovation stems from experimentation.
What does this mean in practice? We create works of theatre, from conception to production. We experiment - we investigate problems and questions in theatre in hopes of achieving artistic innovation. Like scientists, we test hypotheses for which we need more evidence to prove their results and combine improbable artistic elements to learn how these disruptions illuminate the art form. Sometimes the experimental elements in our productions satisfyingly work according to our expectations, and sometimes they deliver mixed results. But some experiments are wholly novel to us, contain several unknown variables, or produce consistently unpredictable effects, making it impossible for us to even know what expectations to have. We work bravely, even when we're afraid of failure, and know that if it feels easy or comfortable, we're not doing our job.
We are an ensemble company. We make our work collectively and consider all artists involved in a project equally essential to that project. We believe that actors are creative artists. Our process for each production is unique to that production.