Environmental theater

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Environmental theater, sometimes called site-specific theater, is a style of theatrical performance which strives for greater authenticity and audience engagement by staging its action in appropriate real-world settings rather than in traditional theater spaces.

Examples include Psycho-So-Matic and Downsize, staged by Chicago's Walkabout Theater in a landromat and a series of public restrooms, respectively (1); Girls Just Wanna Have Fund$, staged by Women's Project in the lobbies, escalators, and bridges of New York's World Financial Center (2); Supernatural Chicago, staged in an allegedly haunted nightclub (3); and Small Metal Objects, staged by Australia's Back To Back Theater at the Whitehall Ferry Terminal.(4)

A secondary definition of environmental theater is used to describe any production that attempts to immerse the audience in the performance by bringing the action off the stage area. For example, some acting may happen in aisles. In the case of a black box theater acting platforms may even be built between audience section. Sometimes a performer will talk to, or otherwise involve an audience member in a scene. This can be a real audience member, as in interactive theater, or an actor planted to appear as an audience member.

A subset of this is promenade theater, in which there is little or no seating for audience members, who watch the action happening among them and may follow the performers around the space.(4) An example of promenade theater is the performances put on by Punchdrunk, a UK based theater company.

[edit] REFERENCES

(1) Overnight Lows, Low Down in Chicagoist

(2) Interest Compounded At World Financial Center Stages in the New York Post

(3) Haunting Tales Fill Late-Night Haunt in the Chicago Tribune

(4) Under The Radar Tries Its Hand At Site-Specific Work in the Village Voice

(5) The Promenade article in Scottish Arts