Theatre virtually everywhere: A new framework for virtual rehearsal
-Project partners: Centre for Performance, Technology and Equity (PTEQ) at The Royal Central School for Speech and Drama, Agile Lens, Preevue, Threshold Acoustics, Sam Crane
A collaboration led by David Gochfeld and Kate Lane from the Centre for Performance, Technology and Equity (PTEQ) at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, will work with creatives, performers and technical teams from the RSC and other theatre organisations to build and test an advanced prototype for a virtual rehearsal room.
Working with industry partners Agile Lens, Preevue, and Threshold Acoustics, and filmmaker, artist and actor Sam Crane, the PTEQ team will develop a tool and workflow for a critical element of theatre productions – the rehearsal process – in a virtual environment.
The new tool will be tailored to the needs of theatre practitioners, fitting smoothly into established production processes and preserving artistic intent while enabling creative experimentation.
The project team will investigate the specific challenges that theatre companies face in adopting virtual production (VP) and digital twin (DT) technologies to translate rehearsals into virtual environments.
The adoption of VP and DT technologies offers substantial potential benefits to theatre companies. For example, creating a digital form of a performance will enable theatre practitioners to offer unique virtual experiences to complement live shows.
This project will realise those benefits by unlocking the workflows that bring content into game engines, enabling theatre artists to deliver that content to audiences.
The virtual rehearsal room will become a key component in the journey to making it easier for theatres to give stage productions a second life in digital form. It will also preserve three-dimensional archival recordings of productions.
The tool will also extend the reach of the performance through a new, climate friendly and accessible touring mode that will bring actors into the digital twin in real-time to perform live for online audiences.
About the Centre for Performance, Technology and Equity (PTEQ) at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama’s Centre for Performance, Technology and Equity (PTEQ) develops ground-breaking approaches to immersive and digital technologies from a performance-led perspective in tandem with promoting social equity.
Photo credit to David Gochfeld.
Categories: Arts, Performance, Research, Technology