Pew Center for Arts and Heritage

Get our monthly newsletter in your inbox for the latest on cultural events, ideas, conversations, and grantmaking news in Philadelphia and beyond.

Main page contents
Aaron Cromie’s A Paper Garden, commissioned and produced for the American Philosophical Society Museum’s Greenhouse Projects. Photo by Brent Wahl. Pictured: Genevieve Perrier [in the dress] and Mary Tuomanen [in the hat].

Questions of Practice: Theater Artist Aaron Cromie on Artistic Responsibility

Questions of Practice: Theater Artist Aaron Cromie on Artistic Responsibility

We asked Philadelphia multidisciplinary theater artist Aaron Cromie to comment on the artistic responsibilities he considers as a director. “I think it’s the director’s job to create an environment and a world,” Cromie responded. “The director is an arbiter of great ideas.”

Multidisciplinary theater artist Aaron Cromie on the responsibilities of being a theater director. Filmed at The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage on March 3, 2015.

Aaron Cromie is a multidisciplinary theater artist working in a range of theatrical styles including mask, puppetry, clown, music, and commedia dell’arte. As a performer, designer, director, writer, and musician, Cromie has collaborated with Arden Theatre Company, The Folger Shakespeare Theatre, Walnut Street Theatre, Mum Puppettheatre, The Studio Theatre, Wilma Theater, Lantern Theater, and Shakespeare Theatre, among others. Cromie collaborated on the Center-funded The Body Lautrec with theater artist Mary Tuomanen, which premiered in the 2014 Fringe Festival.