In "The Trio," Chekhov Meets Clown

What happens when Chekhov meets clown?

Chelsea Thaler, Duke Theater Studies’ 2025–2026 Artist-in-Residence, is exploring that question with “The Trio,” a contemporary, ensemble-driven adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters.” Developed through an intensive devising process with Duke students and professional collaborators, the production reframes Chekhov’s meditation on longing, frustration and endurance through physical comedy, gesture and experimental lighting and projection technology.

Thaler’s background in devised performance and clown — shaped by training at the National Theatre Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, the Moscow Art Theatre, Pig Iron Theatre School and École Philippe Gaulier — informs the work’s playful yet probing approach. The result is a piece that finds humor in difficulty and invites audiences to see Chekhov’s 120-year-old text reflected in the present moment.

Performances are free and currently taking place in Sheafer Lab Theater, from February 12-14, 2026. We caught up with Thaler to talk about returning to Chekhov through the lens of physical comedy, collaborating with Duke students as actor-creators and what audiences can expect to experience. 

You refer to “The Trio” as a contemporary clown adaptation of Chekhov’s “The Three Sisters.” What prompted you to adapt “The Three Sisters” and how does your adaptation differ from the original?

I have been interested in Chekhov's work since I was an undergraduate student. I spent a semester in Moscow studying at the Moscow Art Theater when I was 21 years old through the National Theatre Institute. The Moscow Art Theater semester program is now defunct, but I was lucky to complete conservatory training in Russia through the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, in Connecticut. We created a devised version of “Three Sisters” while in school, so I've been thinking about this play and about Chekhov's work ever since. 

In the many years since then, my work as an artist and director/performer has primarily been in physical theater. I completed my MFA in Devised Performance at University of the Arts in Philly with Pig Iron Theater School, and studied clown (or physical comedy) at Ecole Philippe Gaulier in France. These two schools are both theater schools that focus on physical training for the actor through the lens of devised theater, and both schools ultimately culminate in a weeks-long study of clown. Because of my training and studies, I've grown more interested in returning to Chekhov's text but through the lens of physical comedy, the art of clowning. It's a very hard time to be alive — and Chekhov's text also speaks to this — and so finding a way to have a sense of humor even in the midst of personal, societal, global tragedy feels like an artistic engine for me right now. 

Please tell me a little about devised performance and how you devised “The Trio.” Did you incorporate devised performance into your acting class last semester and, if so, in what way?

Students who are working on this show are actually separate from students currently enrolled in my classes. So, all students working on “The Trio” are working on the project simply because they want to be there, which brings an exciting energy to the room! I ran a series of workshops last semester designed to introduce students to the art of clowning and physical comedy, to tools like mask work, and introduced them to devising techniques from my own artistic practice and my training. It's exciting to shape the show alongside the students and be able to offer them tools not only in performance but also in self-authorship, how to be both a writer and an actor. 

I did include some elements of devising in my Acting 145S courses. I'm excited for students in my classes to see this work-in-progress, to bring some context to what devising means and share an example of how actors can create their own work for the stage in an ensemble.

How have your students contributed to the development of “The Trio” and how have the cast and crew reacted to it so far?

Beyond being performers, students have contributed as devisers, so I have a cast of seven students who are really working as actor-creators. It's a different way of working than a traditional model of director, playwright, actor: We are all the playwrights, many of the students are actors, and while I am the director, the students have a lot of agency and permission to be directing themselves before I step in to help shape what they have created. 

I love this way of working because it is both a pedagogical and a creative process, one where we are all learning and creating together. Many positive reactions have occurred, but one that feels especially tender is the trust that has been built between the cast and crew as an ensemble. One student, Annabel Lee, is serving both as actor-creator and is creating wearable LED lighting technology that will be worn by some of the actors in the show. We are integrating her research into the show, and have been using rehearsal to test prototypes of her lighting and projection design research. It has been very exciting for the cast and crew to see this integration of technical-creative research with actors onstage. 

We also have a group of seven professional actors joining us, all of whom are collaborators of mine who I met either at the Pig Iron School or at École Philippe Gaulier. Getting to watch the students and professional interact and devise this piece together has been an extremely rewarding process for all.

What would you like the audience to take away from “The Trio”?

I'd love the audience to be able to find some kind of mirror, where they see themselves somehow reflected in the characters or events of “Three Sisters.” 

I'd also love for audiences to have a meditative moment on the absurdity of the play's relevance — it was written by Chekhov over 120 years ago! And yet here we are today, still loving, fighting, laughing, fearing, crying — being human. Despite the many aspects of our world today trying to force us to turn away from our own humanity, we do carry on. 

“Three Sisters,” as written by Chekhov, is a story that has a lot of humanity. My hope is that by highlighting the comedy of being human in this adaptation, we also make space for the tragedy, the despair, the grief, all of it.

What’s next for “The Trio” after Duke?

I plan to use the remainder of my residency (March-June) to workshop more technical ideas, and will continue the writing/devising process that began with the students on my own. I hope to have a second draft of the piece ready to stage either at a residency or festival, either in New York City or internationally in 2026/2027.