philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

The pandemic revolutionized theater and the performing arts. Get used to seeing plays with a VR headset on.

In March of last year, for instance, the famous Royal Shakespeare Company co-produced Dream, an immersive theater experience inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream that featured actors using motion capture technology. They were transformed into digital avatars, and their performance was streamed to an audience watching on smartphones or computers. 

It’s one of several shows, along with “Wallace and Gromit: The Big Fix Up,” “Robots and Dinosaurs/Lost Origin” and “Weavr,” which received funding from a £16 million British government initiative called The Future Demonstrators Programme, dedicated to “funding major projects exploring the future of large-scale immersive experiences.” That itself is part of a larger £39.3 million governmental fund, Audience of the Future, which began before the pandemic, and invested in new immersive technologies such as virtual, augmented and mixed reality from 2018 to 2021. ...

Tony-nominated director Robert O’Hara is bringing the classic “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” to New York City’s Off-Broadway circuit, and he told The New York Times that he struck a deal with Audible to secure the rights. The catch? He’s directing an audio presentation of the production at an undisclosed post-February date this year.  

“What’s amazing about this turn to streaming and digital is the democratization of theater, so more people will be able to access it,” actor Ato Blankson-Wood told the Times.

See the full story here: https://fortune.com/2022/01/24/pandemic-theater-performing-arts-virtual-reality/