Experimental Theatre

Experimental Theatre

Site-Specific Theatre

The Black Box Theatre

Invisible Theatre

A black box theatre is exactly what it sounds like. It is a simple room with black walls and a black floor. Light and sound equipment are installed to make it a working theatre. The audience is seated in unsecured chairs around an open space which serves as the stage. Because black boxes require so little, any kind of open space (warehouses, old coffee shops, classrooms) can be turned into a working theatre. They gained a lot of popularity during the 1960s and 1970s when theatre was extremely experimental.

Shakespeare once wrote, "All the world's a stage!" Site-specific takes Shakespeare literally. A site-specific theatre is never someplace that was intentionally built to be a performance space. Site-specific theatre is any unique, and specially adapted location. It takes the performance off the stage and moves it to an unconventional space - like a forest or a bathroom or a renovated train station.

Why choose a black box?

Why choose Site-Specific Theatre?

• They are easily built and cheaply maintained.
• Because the chairs are not secured to the floor, they can be rearranged to create an arena, thrust, or proscenium type stage.
• The absence of color gives the audience the feeling that they can be anyplace.
• Lighting cues are much stronger and bolder in this enclosed black space.
• They are considered a place where "pure" theatre can be experimented because plays can focus on acting and technique rather than spectacle.
• New works can be tested out in a black box for potential investors and to troubleshoot the script without having to spend a lot of money.

Site-specific theatre immerses the audience the performance. Any acting platform or stage can create a disconnect between the audience and the performers. Site-specific breaks down all walls and invites audience members to become a more interactive part of the performance. For example, Psycho-So-Matic staged by Chicago's Walkabout Theater, is performed in a laundromat - while real customers are doing their laundry. The location of a site-specific theatre can greatly influence the audience's emotional connection with the play. For example, Pool Play by Charles L. Mee and Jessie Bear, is about America's history with swimming pools and explores everything from segregated facilities to synchronized swimming. The performers perform in a real swimming pool while audience members sit at the edge with their feet in the water.

Invisible Theatre

Contrary to popular belief - invisible theatre does not consist of pranks! It was actually developed in the 1960s by Augusto Boal of Argentina. It was called Theatre of the Oppressed and is meant to focused on social issues. Invisible theatre can take place anytime and anywhere. While a prank can take place anytime and anywhere, it does not deal with a social issue and it is eventually revealed as a "performance."It is meant to be performed for unwitting bystanders who have no idea that they're watching a performance. The actors do their best to get audience members, or "spect-actors" involved in the scene without revealing that it is a performance. The purpose of invisible theatre gain of sense of what a genuine reaction might be to a social issue. If an audience member knows they're part of a performance, they won't respond honestly. They'll react the way they think they're expected to.

Site-Specific & Invisible Theatre

These two types of theatre are similar - but don't get them confused!!

• They're similar because both types of theatre take place in unconventional places. They can happen anywhere - a traditional stage setting is not required.
• They're different because site-specific audience members are aware they're watching a performance. Invisible audience members, or "spect-actors," are not.