EAST COAST ARTISTS (ECA) was founded in 1992 by renowned director and performance theorist Richard Schechner as a professional ensemble dedicated to boldly re-inventing classic texts, debuting radically new international work and challenging conventional notions of contemporary theater and performer training.

A resident company of Ellen Stewart’s famed La MaMa Experimental Theater Club, ECA was hailed by The Village Voice as “an ensemble for the ‘90s.” From its earliest productions like FAUSTgastronome, “Ingenious and unfailingly fun: it may put viewers off food for months” (New York Times) to its newest debut PITCH, “Elegant and smart....  A cohesive and pertinent piece of theatre art" (nytheatre.com), ECA has consistently produced process-driven, experimental work of tremendous relevance.  All the while its psychophysical performance technique, RasaBoxes™, developed from Schechner’s time in India and East Asia, has found applications beyond the theater in work with K-12 educators, doctors and scientists.

Committed to cross-cultural dialogue, ECA has partnered with such international artists and companies as Manjula Padmanabhan, Saviana Stanescu, the Shanghai Theater Academy, the Grotowski Institute, and the Dramalabbet to examine the intersections of difference that are fundamental components of living within a global community.   The last three years have seen ECA productions performed in New York, Shanghai, Wroclaw, Bucharest, and Stockholm, with artists from Japan, China, Finland, Mexico, Germany, Serbia, India, as well as the United States.

Lauded by critics and scholars from such diverse publications as The New York Times, Performing Arts Journal, National Geographic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and American Theatre, ECA, under newly appointed artistic director, Benjamin Mosse, continues its mission of intercultural exchange and artistic experimentation as a model of global collaboration.