In 'Station Eleven', what is the name of the traveling theatrical troupe?

In Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, the traveling theatrical troupe is called the Traveling Symphony.

The Traveling Symphony is a nomadic company of actors and musicians moving through settlements around the Great Lakes roughly twenty years after the Georgia Flu pandemic. Led by conductor Gil and supported by figures such as Sarah, Kirsten Raymonde, and August, the troupe performs Shakespeare plays and classical music for scattered communities of survivors.

Its motto, “Survival is insufficient,” comes from Star Trek: Voyager and captures the novel’s central idea: staying alive is not enough if people abandon art, memory, and shared culture. The Symphony’s performances therefore serve a social purpose as well as an artistic one, helping isolated settlements preserve a connection to the vanished world.

Readers sometimes confuse the troupe with the Museum of Civilization, a separate community at Severn City Airport founded by Clark Thompson. The Symphony travels from place to place, while the museum preserves artifacts and memories in one location. The television adaptation also uses the name Traveling Symphony, though its membership, route, and backstory differ from the novel’s.