Critical Mass Performance Group

Nancy Keystone, Founding Artistic Director & Executive Producer
 
MISSION & ABOUT
We believe that by sharing stories through vibrant performance and community interactions, theatre can sow seeds of empathy to help us imagine and manifest a more just world.

Critical Mass Performance Group is an award-winning ensemble instigated by Artistic Director, Nancy Keystone, at UCLA in 1985. Through form-busting theatricality and electrifying collisions of ideas we explore big questions about people and their place in history and within systems. We make epic historical projects (Ameryka, Apollo, The Akhmatova Project), re-imaginings of classics (Alcestis, After Iphigenia), interactive salons (Bread), social practice art (A Jordan Downs Illumination), and quirky inventions (Untitled Communion, Bad Medicine). Our work is created through ensemble collaboration. We start with nothing but an idea, and develop a piece over many years of research, workshops, community story-sharing, presentations of works-in-progress, audience feedback, and lots of snacks. CMPG is recognized nationally as a leader in ensemble creation practices. Our productions have been consistently honored with awards and critical recognition. Apollo is prominently featured in Stephanie Arnold’s textbook, The Creative Spirit (McGraw Hill, 2011), and in Tom Bryant’s The Dramaturgy of History (Routledge, 2024). 

The company retains a flexible structure, works on a project-by-project basis, and maintains a dynamic advisory committee. Critical Mass Performance Group is a member of the Network of Ensemble Theatres.
 
We’ve partnered with, and performed at: Center Theatre Group, Boston Court Pasadena, Getty Villa, The Getty Center, REDCAT, Portland Center Stage, Skirball Cultural Center, Mixed Blood Theatre, PlayMakers Rep, LA Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), South Coast Rep, The Orchard Project, USC’s Visions and Voices, Huntington Library, and others.