Examples of site-specific theatre include:


Through scenes enacted in various rooms of “Linden”, a large St Kilda mansion, Living Rooms traces the social and cultural progress of the building from family mansion, to boarding house, to contemporary art gallery. Audiences moved through the building in small groups where they witnessed the lives of the imaginary characters who resided in Linden at key moments in its history.


Using a similar site-specific template to Living Rooms (moving audience groups from room to room), Full House/No Vacancies was also staged in various bedrooms of a typical boarding house in St. Kilda in the late 1980s. The building (the “Linga Longa” boarding house) was facing demolition and massive over-development that would have seen all its tenants summarily evicted. However, working collectively, the tenants (a prostitute, a failed stand-up comedian and a retired actress) manage to expose the developer and save their home.


The Ramlila, a dramatic enactment of the Hindu history Ramayana, could be considered a type of site-specific theatre. Started in 1830 by Maharaja Udit Narayan Singh of Varanasi, it is held each year over a period of 31 days during the autumn festive season of Dussehra at Ramnagar, Varanasi in India. The Ramlila is staged in permanent structures created as sets throughout the three square mile area where the audience follow the actors. The Ramlila was declared by the UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005.^[14][15]


Following on from the remarkable success of TheatreWorks’ Storming Mont Albert By Tram in 1982, an outbreak of site-specific theatre took place across Melbourne throughout the 1980s. This saw the production of further plays on trams (Storming St. Kilda by Tram, Storming Glenelg by Tram) riverboats (Breaking Up In Balwyn), busses (Bus, Son of Tram) houses (Fefu and Her Friends, Living Rooms, Full House/No Vacancies, Looking In, Looking Out) pubs (The Pub Show) a cinema (D J View) a woollen mill (The Wool Game) a nursing home (Vital Signs ) a football club dressing room (Not Waving) a scout hall (In Cahoots) a prison (Hard Labour, Mate) as well as shopping centres, camping grounds, parks and gardens (The Go Anywhere Show, Wind in the Willows). Much of this work is documented in Really Moving Drama – Taking Theatre for a Ride (2016) ISBN 9781534866751; Staging the World – Theatre In the Space Age (Adventures in Site-Specific Performance) ISBN 9780648599890; and A Short History of TheatreWorks (1979 to 1994) ISBN 9780648900207


Site-specific theatre can also include environmental theatre, a 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 black box theatre, acting platforms may even be built between audience sections. 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 theatre, or a confederate actor planted to appear as an audience member.


There are variations on site-specific theatre, including but not limited to:

Criticism[edit]

A 2008 Guardian article titled "Site-specific theatre? Please be more specific" argued that the term was quickly becoming a "promotional catchword" or marketing device used to describe any show not staged in a purpose-built auditorium.^[18] Theatre professor, Bertie Ferdman, suggests that the term has become too broad and that the artform is at "risk of losing meaning altogether".^[19]