My project was prompted by the Museum of London Archaeology’s (MOLA) excavations of the Curtain site in 2016. These revealed a rectangular playhouse that was so well-preserved it provided an unprecedentedly detailed set of performance conditions to study Shakespeare’s Shoreditch plays. Approaching the term “style” as a composite of what a dramatic text is made of/from (aesthetics) and how it is used (utility), I develop a hybrid methodology in this study that reanimates features of John Russell Brown’s 1970 book Shakespeare’s Dramatic Style and applies the latest advances in textual studies, theatre history, and practice-as-research (PaR) to show a new style of Shakespeare at the Curtain. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men relocated to the Curtain in 1597 after suffering a series of personal, legal, and financial setbacks and remained there until the new Globe opened in the summer of 1599. During this time, Shakespeare was an ambitious but cash-strapped playwright who retooled old plays to pull in new crowds (Romeo and Juliet), cashed-in on popular characters with sure-fire spin-offs (The Merry Wives of Windsor), and found innovative solutions for the Curtain’s fluid audiences (Henry V). In a series of three sequential case studies, I demonstrate that Shakespeare adapted his dramatic style to account for the unique circumstances and challenges presented by Curtain performance. The result was a raucous, violent, and interactive style of Shakespeare, unlike any other stage in his career or at any other playhouse. My research was heavily impacted by Covid-19, and consequently these findings have implications that reach beyond the study’s motivating purpose. In addition to providing new critical territory that engages scholars from across a broad range of disciplines in productive new conversations about Shakespeare’s style, my study presents a model that connects dramatic texts with their sites of performance while reducing geographical barriers to participation.