A couple thoughts on theater in non traditional places.

First, in doing site specific and immersive theater one should not go against the grain of the space. Let the environment speak to you, be in conversation with it. How do you marry the story to the environment and the environment to the story? A Doll's House Part 2 I did in Alaska traveled throughout Juneau’s community centers bringing the story to the people. The company there is called Theater Alaska. They needed to travel with the bare minimum. So putting the chairs for the audience in the round and using that circle as the walls of Torvald’s house with breaks in that circle to indicate the doorways solved the set. The audience became a part of the story. The walls had ears. The only thing in this house was the same chair the audience sat on. In a show called These Seven Sicknesses I sort of did a reverse. The production was done in a theater called PCPC in Rhode Island. The PCPC was a bank turned into a theater but for this production I turned it back into the bank. All of the black masking was removed, taken down, one could once again see through the windows into the space. It was a shame that the plywood was glued to the marble floor, so we covered the plywood with linoleum. Getting the space to its original intent, we proceeded to install the environment that would help tell the story - a temporary/makeshift hospital. And the audience was seated in the waiting room.