Dr. Benjamin Blyth, English instructor at St. Mary’s University, is inviting readers to experience Shakespeare in an entirely new way with the publication of his latest book, Site-Specific Shakespeare, released by Cambridge University Press.
Drawing on more than a decade of international research, creative practice, and interviews with theatre practitioners, Dr. Blyth explores how Shakespeare’s plays continue to come alive in unexpected places, from ruined convents and historic churches to public parks, community spaces, and even online performances. Rather than treating performance spaces as simple backdrops, Blyth argues that they become active participants in the storytelling itself, shaping the way audiences experience these timeless works.
“Site-Specific Shakespeare has been a labour of love,” said Blyth. “It draws on ten years’ experience staging productions of Shakespeare’s plays in some unexpected and exciting spaces all over the world. As folks who may have seen Shakespeare in the Park performances can attest, there’s a certain magic in this type of art staged beyond the boundaries of our established theatre spaces.”
Blyth believes their enduring appeal lies in their ability to continue to connect with diverse communities across the globe in meaningful ways.
“Although Shakespeare’s plays are 400 years old and were written thousands of miles away, there are qualities in these stories, and this interactive mode of storytelling, that speak directly to us in Treaty 7 today.”
Throughout his research, Blyth found inspiration in community-driven productions that reinterpret Shakespeare through local perspectives. Among the performances that left a lasting impression was an early staging of Reneltta Arluk’s Pawakan Macbeth in Edmonton, which he describes as “an absolute barnstormer.” He also credits local theatre groups, including the Dewdney Players in Okotoks, for demonstrating the creativity and resilience of grassroots theatre.
His own productions have also produced memorable moments. “For sheer surprise factor in my own work, I’m not sure you can beat staging The Tempest in Red Deer during a tornado warning,” he said.
One of the central ideas explored in Site-Specific Shakespeare is that performance spaces are collaborators rather than passive settings. Through years of directing productions in unique locations, Blyth found that each venue contributed its own character to the work.
“When you work in conversation with performance sites, you invariably end up listening more,” he explained. “Listening to what the space has to say, of how the text speaks with the place of performance, with its players, and its audiences. In this way, the sites themselves end up as part of the action.”
He recalls staging several productions in St. Leonard’s Church in London, where the cast eventually began referring to the building itself as another member of the company.
“These days, I rarely approach a project with a fully formed idea of where the play will end up, only a sense of where we will set off from, together.”
The book also introduces new concepts, including “tactical intelligence” and “Guerrilla Shakespeare,” drawing on the work of French cultural theorist and Jesuit priest Michel de Certeau. Blyth argues that many contemporary site-specific productions are created by artists working with limited resources who use creativity, adaptability, and unconventional spaces to produce bold and engaging performances.
As a faculty member at St. Mary’s University, Blyth brings this same philosophy into the classroom, encouraging students to move beyond simply reading dramatic texts and instead experience them as living performances.
“When working with historically distant material, especially drama, we will imagine and attempt stagings and scenes in the classroom,” he said. “Any chance to lift text from the page and consider how it interacts with people, places, and things, breathing life into the words.”
Whether through classroom performances, attending productions by Calgary’s Shakespeare Company, or creative podcast assignments while teaching remotely, Blyth aims to help students discover how literature continues to resonate in contemporary life.
Published by Cambridge University Press, Site-Specific Shakespeare contributes a fresh perspective to Shakespeare studies by examining how place, community, and performance continually reshape some of the world’s most enduring plays.
Site-Specific Shakespeare is available through Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009617376