Listen to A Live Animated Stage Production… Wait, what?

Thing. I feel like i haven’t spent enough time. Thinking about is how the pandemic will change arts not just what kind of pandemic themed stories will see and have already begun to see but literally how it will change the medium for some things. It’s something that a lot of other people have been thinking about. However and some technologies that were previously relegated to low budget. College tinkering are starting to get their moment in the spotlight and the funding to boots. Here’s one example. The royal shakespeare company in england is putting on a virtual production using real time animation created by actors in a motion capture space who will interact live with virtual audiences basically they have actors in motion capture suits and facial regained with corresponding avatars of their characters. The audience will be able to see both the actors and their characters as they move around and perform inside a virtual forest scene and as they go about the story. The actors and audience will be able to interact. What exactly that will look like in real time. I don’t have a clear sense of. But on their website the royal shakespeare company says quotes audience plus to get holders take on the role of firefly’s helping to light the forest and interacting with their mouths track pad or touch screen the actors respond to audience interaction and direction making each performance. Unique and quotes won’t many different groups around the world have been working on similar technology. The royal shakespeare company claims to have been the first to pioneer this technology for a live theater performance. Back in two thousand sixteen with their production of the tempest in that performance. The actor who played the spirit ariel was kitted out with sensors that were translated into live animation on stage enhancing the magical sense of the character for audiences as our a artistic director. Gregory doran said at the time the way the technology was being used means quote. The actor becomes the marionettes and the puppeteer at the same time and quotes old now. Almost five years later. Technology has advanced even more allowing them in partnership again with epic games’s unreal engine to make more sophisticated of multiple actors plop them into a virtual setting and allow an audience to interact in real time. The show itself is not a complete play like the tempest was but rather a fifty minute experience. Based on the world of shakespeare’s a midsummer night’s dream led by puck you as the audience will explore the forest and meet other sprites and ferries from the play working to prevent an oncoming threats of destruction. If you want to experience what they’re calling simply dream you can get tickets at the lincoln the show notes if you just want to watch. Tickets are free. You don’t even need to reserve them in advance but if you want to be a part of audience plus get to interact with the performers. It’s ten pounds. And i think you may need to actually be based in the uk to participate in that. Their site checks the compatibility of your device before allowing you to purchase audience plus tickets and no matter which browser device were vpn. Trying to use. I couldn’t get mine to be marked as compatible so you can try it yourself but definitely you can tune in for free if you are not in. The united kingdom shows are march twelfth through the twentieth at various times through the afternoons and evenings. So even if you’re watching from another time zone you may find one that works for you but getting back to the technology of dream another cool thing that they’re doing that as you’re on that journey with the fairies if you interact or the actors change things up based on audience response the musical score will change accordingly quoting again from. Sec dream features a symphonic score based on recordings by the philharmonia orchestra conducted by principal conductor and artistic adviser sullivan. The recordings are expanded by music. Created in real time by the movements of the performers this living dynamic soundtrack adapts and interacts with the narrative and the prerecorded orchestral tracks and quotes. I’m super fascinated by this technology. In terms of its impact on both live in virtual theatre in general but also as an interpretation of shakespeare and other older plays you know so often performances of shakespeare set in his time with stuffy elizabethan costumes and settings feeling so intensely old and uninteresting to many people but shakespeare and his contemporaries were cutting edge. They were innovators. They pushed the limits and once he got over the paranoia of this being the devil’s work. I think shakespeare would have been really into this giant leap forward in live. Theatrical portrayals are a or director. Dora thinks similarly telling the observer quote this is a twenty first century reimagining of shakespeare’s play which is giving us a completely different vocabulary of imagery. That’s extraordinary when we did the tempest in two thousand sixteen explored the opportunities that the digital world could give to us. I really did think then quoting the play. This is a brave new world. There’s so much opportunity out there. It says if technology is now providing us with this amazing paintbox. We’ve a lot of very exciting talent that can find uses for those new tools and quotes.