In Sainer’s definition of site-specific theatre, space becomes an event. Today, more and more theatres are finding that this type of production can attract new audiences not often found in traditional spaces. First, A Definition: What is ‘Site-Specific’?
Producers and directors have realized that site-specific theatre has the potential of attracting a “non-theatre” audience – an audience that might not ordinarily attend or enjoy traditional theatre.
Sainer realized that theatre that took place in nontheatrical spaces often required more involvement and interaction from audience members and, in such environments, life was “less capable than usual of protecting [them] from art.” In Sainer’s definition of site-specific theatre, space becomes an event.
Examples of site-specific theatre include Psycho-So-Matic and Downsize, staged by Chicago's Walkabout Theater in a landromat and a series of public restrooms, respectively; Girls Just Wanna Have Fund$, staged by Women's Project in the lobbies, escalators, and bridges of New York's World Financial Center; Supernatural Chicago, staged in an allegedly haunted nightclub, and Small Metal Objects, staged by Australia's Back To Back Theater at the Whitehall Ferry Terminal. Another example of this form is the Ramlila, dramatic enactment of Hindu epic, Ramayana, started in 1830 by Maharaja Udit Narayan Singh of Varanasi. It is held each year over the period of 31 days, during autumn festive season of Dussehra at Ramnagar, Varanasi in India, and is staged in permanent structures created as sets throughout the three square mile area, where the audience follow the actors. Ramlila has been declared by the UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005.
Environmental theatre, in which a pre-existing production is placed in an environment similar to the one in which the play is set (e.g. performing Hamlet in a Danish Castle).
Several years ago, the Scottish Arts Council, recognizing that site-specific theatre required some sort of operational description for their grant programs, defined a site-specific production as a theatrical performance that “fully exploits the properties, qualities and meanings of a given site.”.
It was also limiting because we replaced imaginary theatrical boundaries (such as the transparent “fourth wall”) with real ones – the real physical barriers and constraints that inherently existed in the sites we were working with. It took us a few years to begin considering these barriers earlier in the production process. How much noise does a trolley make in navigating downtown traffic? How many people can you fit in a bank lobby or in an elevated walkway? Site-specific theatre also gives you less control over the audience – they no longer are fixed immovably in a seat in a darkened theatre building.
Sainer realized that theatre that took place in nontheatrical spaces often required more involvement and interaction from audience members and, in such environments, life was “less capable than usual of protecting [them] from art.”. In Sainer’s definition of site-specific theatre, space becomes an event.
Our experience with the genre at Charleston Stage Company was extremely positive. We found that the flexibility afforded by the relatively unstructured nature of the form encouraged a great deal of collaboration. Because of the nature of the setting, audience members tend to bevery involved with the performance. Rand Harmon, producer of the Louisville elevator plays, noted that, “when the audience is asked to engage with a dramatic presentation while also engaging in a conventional activity like riding in a functioning elevator, the aesthetic distance from the dramatic presentation slides to extremely intimate. It becomes difficult to differentiate between watching and being involved and as such the psychological and aesthetic distance they experience gets compressed and distorted, and possibly even gets erased.”
The theatrical event always happens within a space, but only sometimes is space itself an event.”. – Arthur Sainer, The Radical Theatre Notebook (1975) Actors Theatre of Louisville was one of the early presenters of site-specific works, including this play produced inside a Lincoln Town Car during the 23rd annual Humana Festival ...
Today, more and more theatres are finding that this type of production can attract new audiences not often found in traditional spaces.
Ranges from Previously Published to Site-Specific. It’s possible to perform a conventional, published play in an unconventional, nontheatrical space. ( Hamlet has been performed in castles, graveyards and, in 2010, on Alcatraz Island.) At the other end of the spectrum, many, if not most, site-specific texts cannot be separated from the site itself and would not make sense if performed elsewhere.