Accelerating innovation in performing arts

A new white paper, ‘Accelerating Innovation in Performing Arts’ presents the process and outcomes of the XR Network+ Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) Research and Development (R&D) Challenge.

The paper also explores the critical role of the XR Stories team who undertook the role of expert intermediary during the R&D Challenge.

Co-designed by XR Stories and the RSC, the R&D Challenge enabled two project teams to work with the RSC to explore how Virtual Production technologies could contribute to live performance and provide new theatre experiences for audiences across various platforms. 

The white paper presents the technical approaches, challenges and outcomes from the two funded projects and outlines their work pioneering technological innovations in the form of tools, workflows and pipelines to address technical challenges encountered by the RSC: 

• Centre for the Analysis of Movement, Entertainment Research and Applications (CAMERA), University of Bath: Making “all the world a stage” with dynamic motion capture solutions for theatre production.
• Centre for Performance, Technology and Equity (PTEQ), Royal Central School of Speech and Drama: Theatre virtually everywhere: A new framework for virtual rehearsal.

Aimed at creative and university R&D teams, cultural institutions, and research funding bodies, the paper makes stakeholder-specific recommendations for each group to de-risk creative R&D and achieve high-quality, relevant outcomes.

Discover more about both projects in a video about the R&D challenge.

Web page image: Actor Matthew Churcher pre-performance for a motion capture shoot. Photo by Michelle Wu, CAMERA

Published on 24 November 2025