Ensemble theater is one of the hottest, most engaging American performance forms today. It's more than art -- it's a movement.

Performing Communities is an inquiry into a genre of theater that arises from and empowers the grassroots. The book profiles established ensemble groups from inner-city Los Angeles, small-town northern California, African-American South, multicultural southern Texas, low-income central Appalachia, economically struggling South Bronx New York, and cross-continental Native America.

This compendium of critical writing about the role these theaters...