Site-specific Theatre

Kristin Idaszak reflects on experiencing Theatre Du Polet’s Be Water, My Friend at the Prague Quadrennial. This protest art about Hong Kong’s fight for democracy in 2019, performed in the Czech Republic, crosses cultures, political regimes, and time periods.

Gregory Moomjy and Marianna Mott Newirth share their approach to creating disability-affirmative opera productions in which disability artistry flourishes.

Theatremaker Viktor Vilisov examines the important role theatre can play in supporting migrants and refugees.

Talia Rodriguez details the generative process for We Are Kin to the Cove, a site-specific, community-engaged performance exploring the historical and contemporary relationships water and humanity at a cove on New York’s East River.

Gathering Ground Theatre—an Austin, Texas collective comprised of people with lived experiences of homelessness and allies—creates performances that aim to influence public opinion and local legislation. Anna Rogelio Joaquin sits down with Lisa Hoelscher to discuss Lisa’s experience as a co-creator and performer of works that expose issues like hostile architecture and camping bans, as well as the company’s current work on a memorial performance.

In Martin Domecq’s contribution to the Climate Emergency series, he puts four Brazillian performance art pieces in conversation to draw upon the poetic, political, and civic lessons they offer. These performances—which range from installations to solo and group performances—model possible paradigms that work against ecological crisis.

Play House is a collectively stewarded performance space near the border of Detroit and Hamtramck that has become a place of convening and creation for the neighborhood. Richard Newman, a co-manager of the space and co-director of The Hinterlands ensemble, traces connections between creative practice, community, grief, and an outdoor ramp at Play House.

Jonathan Mandell reflects on a number of live, in-person productions that have taken place in New York City over the course of summer 2021.

Jonathan Mandell reflects on his experience of A Dozen Dreams, an art installation that began when twelve New York City-based women playwrights were asked: “What are you dreaming about right now?”

Manuel Muñoz reflects on Virginia Grise’s adaptation of Their Dogs Came with Them, which took place in fall 2019 under the colossal concrete freeway ramps of the I-10 freeway that dissect South Tucson from the edge of the Sonoran Desert.

Caroline Sprague reflects on Shey Rivera Ríos’s recent piece, Fire Flowers and a Time Machine, transformative justice, the nonprofit industrial complex, and more.

Playwright and environmentalist Alice Stanley Jr. shares her experience of Capital W’s newest immersive theatre piece, Fire Season—a play about climate change that took place in the Santa Monica Mountains during this year’s wildfires.

verity healey does a deep-dive into the Our Stage – 4th European Bürgerbühne Festival, which took place in Dresden, Germany, in May 2019.

Several months after Pittsburgh’s Quantam Theatre programmed The Gun Show, there was a mass shooting at a synagogue in the city. TJ Parker discusses how the company responded to the crisis, both through the play and through community engagement.

Howard Shalwitz, Karen Houppert, and Yury Urnov reflect on the productions they saw at this year’s Golden Mask Theatre Festival in Moscow, Russia.

Anne Hamburger, founder of En Garde Arts, talks about the beginnings of her company, and, with it, the beginnings of site-specific theatre in New York City.

Theatremaker Callie Nestleroth discusses devising a show for a library space and shares the process she developed when approaching new site-specific projects.