The methods associated with devised theatre and collective creation have begun to gain traction in the works of East-Central European theatre artists. At the same time, English-speaking theatre scholars have recently argued for either expanding the notion of collective creation to include its influences on other practices throughout the 20th century or defining it as a historical idea rooted in a locally defined cultural context and replacing it with the term theatre-making to refer to contemporary practices. The emergence of the actor as a creator, improvisation as a method of generating material, the laboratory rehearsal style, and the diminution of the playwright’s function may be shared between director’s theatre and collective creation. The notion must be analysed through the lens of the director’s theatre paradigm in order to highlight the contrasts between the two concepts and enable a clearer understanding of how practices might be transferred from one theatrical norm to another.