“Cowboy Mouth,” a play written by Sam Shepard and Patti Smith, is staged in a room above Lucky Cheng’s, an East Village drag-queen cabaret and karaoke bar. (Julia Pasternak)
Part of the fun of going to the theater is watching live performers create a different world in front of our eyes.
That’s not enough for some enterprising directors, so they go the extra mile — taking theater out of the theater. Over the past few years, we’ve been treated to shows not just in warehouses, hotel rooms and churches, but in a moving bus, the subway, a decommissioned Coast Guard ship and the bottom of a (drained) pool. Here come three more plays in which the setting’s half the fun.
* AFOOT IN A FORT
Set during the Civil War, “Amelia” follows the adventures of the title character (Shirleyann Kaladjian) as she searches for her enlisted husband all the way to a prison camp.
Writer/co-star Alex Webb and director Bill Largess found just the right place for the 90-minute two-hander: Governors Island’s Fort Jay, which once held Confederate prisoners.
“We’re in the powder magazine, where they stored dynamite,” Webb says. “It’s as if it had become a third character in the play.”
Getting there only enhances the experience. Governors Island is a free, five-minute ferry ride away from Manhattan or Brooklyn, but it feels lost in time. For Webb, just getting to the show “will add to the sense of being pulled away from the city.”
And there’s an extra bonus for summer: “The magazine is always 20 degrees cooler than the outside, so it has natural air conditioning.
“Amelia” is at Fort Jay on Governors Island through June 17. Go to ameliathe-play.com for information and free reservations.
* MURDER IN A BAR
Cynthia von Buhler has the kind of family footnote any writer would kill for: In 1935, her grandfather, Frank Spano, was shot dead on a Manhattan street. Intrigued, von Buhler started researching the case, discovering that Grandpa had ran a couple of speakeasies in The Bronx.
First, the award-winning illustrator did a graphic novel about the story, reconstituting key scenes with dollhouse-like dioramas.
“Then I saw ‘Sleep No More,’ ” she says of the hit riff on “Macbeth,” set in a sprawling Chelsea warehouse, “and thought this could be a great immersive play.”
The result — “Speakeasy Dollhouse” — is performed twice a month at a Lower East Side club. Though the show is scripted and features two dozen actors, there’s also a participatory component as the audience helps investigate the mystery.
“We have a complete environment with a private alley where we do the shooting, a bar, a living room where we lay the body,” von Buhler explains. “There’s even an abandoned bakery in the basement, and a secret bedroom that you access through a revolving bookshelf!”
The audience takes it to the next level: “You don’t have to dress up in period costumes, but most people do,” von Buhler says. “It’s a play, but it’s also a party.”
Next shows Saturday and Monday; tickets $20 to $50 at speakeasydollhouse.com
* ROCKERS IN LOVE
In 1971, Sam Shepard and Patti Smith wrote and starred in the short but explosive play “Cowboy Mouth,” which alluded to their short but explosive romance.
This type of pungent material doesn’t necessarily work well in a regular theater, so director Leah Benavides is turning an empty space above the East Village’s Lucky Cheng’s — the infamous drag queen cabaret-restaurant-karaoke bar — into the characters’ seedy apartment.
“We hope it’ll say so much about them before they even open their mouths,” Benavides says. “The world they live in is pure rock ’n’ roll.”
And the 25 theatergoers sit a few uncomfortable inches from the action.
“The line between play and audience is eliminated, so people are in the middle of the grit and the fighting,” the director says.
It’s a fitting last hurrah for Lucky Cheng’s. “They’re moving to Midtown soon,” says Benavides. “We’ll be a send-off for them.”
“Cowboy Mouth” runs through June 22 at Lucky Cheng’s, 24 First Ave.; tickets $15 at 800-838-3006.