Founded in 1947 as an imaginative alternative to the commercial theater by Judith Malina, and Julian Beck, a political and artistic iconoclast, pacifist, anarchist, feminist and vegetarian. The Living Theatre has staged more than 80 productions performed in eight languages in 25 countries on four continents - a unique body of work that has influenced theater the world over. Without benefit of a building, rather a firm commitment to social and political change through an embodiment of Grotowski's "poor" theater (Henderson 288), Beck and Malina inspired the off-Broadway movement in the 40's and 50's and the radical theatre in to 60's and 70's ("The Living Theater"). The mission statement which appears at the website for the Living Theatre presents a poetic framework for the company. ...To call into question who we are to each other in the social environment of the theater, to undo the knots that lead to misery, …to insist that what happens in the jails matters, to cry "Not in my name!" at the hour of execution, to move from the theater to the street and from the street to the theater. This is what The Living Theater does today. It is what it has always done ("Historical Notes"). Throughout the 1950s and 1960s The Living Theatre was the most radical, uncompromising and experimental group in American theatrical history. Combining ritual, spectacle, and political confrontation into various unconventional events. The various venues for the company ranged from basement to dedicated theatre to street corner. The Living Theatre was far more concerned with an audience that was somehow forced to act upon a situation (social and political) rather than entertainment. Upon enlightenment, the cast would call for the revelations to be carried through the streets. The Living Theatre's focus, as originally, is to change the world through a political agenda.