The Margolis Brown Adaptors Company (MBAC) is an internationally touring physical theatre company that also houses the Margolis Method Training Center now located in Highland, New York. It was established in New York City in 1984 by Kari Margolis and Tony Brown. As co-artistic directors, Margolis and Brown have thus far co-authored, directed, and sometimes performed in 16 full-length theatrical productions, as well as numerous site-specific works at such places as the Brooklyn Museum, Coney Island, and the historic John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge on the Delaware River.
The MBAC were artists in residence at the Brooklyn Arts and Culture Association (BACA) in New York City from 1985 to 1990. In 1987 they established an independent performance space and multimedia center in Brooklyn and mounted four original productions there. The company has toured nationally and internationally to Barcelona, Berlin, London, Singapore and throughout Canada and Mexico. The company relocated to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1993. There they continued to create and produce multimedia theater productions and trained actors in the Margolis Method for over 12 years. MBAC established an international training center in Sullivan County, New York in 2005 and divide their time between New York and Minneapolis. From 2005 thru 2010 the Company divided its time between both sites. In 2011, the Company and Training Center have moved all operations to the Highland NY site.
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MBAC theatrical productions are collaboratively written original performance works produced by the company. Productions are characterized by frequent utilization of multimedia and sparse text, thereby relying on unconventional means of dramatic conveyance. Examples of those alternative dramatic vehicles are projected images, prerecorded or live sound, or an actor's physicality. In addition, the actors often appear in non-representational dramatic situations.
Margolis has developed a physically based approach to performance called the Margolis Method. The method, along with 25 years of personal research, takes inspiration from the research of such artists as Etienne Decroux, Bertolt Brecht, and Jerzy Grotowski. The method's goal is to analyze and focus the dramatic force and emotion created by an actor's physicality to further the creative and expressive process. It seeks to empower the actor to work simultaneously as a director, playwight and performer.
The Margolis Method was developed in response to what Margolis saw as a fragmented and ineffective way of teaching actors in America. Pedagogically, Margolis rejected the notion that actor training could be broken down into separate contexts (i.e.: stage "voice" and "movement" classes) and instead suggested that all aspects of actor training are inextricably linked. Rather than focusing primarily on establishing character through developing the character's psychological motivations and emotional states, Margolis sought ways to approach drama and character from a physical perspective as well. To accomplish this, Margolis Method focuses on theatrical notions like conflict, timing, and neutrality and employs concepts borrowed from physics, such as inertia, lines of force and density (as well as concrete manifestations of these principles, such as: pendulums, pulleys and elastics).