Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

How do we enhance the audience experience in the digital world without loosing the visceral feeling of live theatre? In this interactive workshop presentation, we share our recent research, The Virtual Actor, which was an experimental research project using scenes from The Wizard of Oz where an audience member took on the role of Dorothy, in a live stage show, without having to get up on the stage. Virtual Reality (VR) is capable of immersing the viewer in a 3D visual and auditory space, witnessing a pre-recorded environment or scene from a predetermined vantage point. Yet, this project went beyond witnessing, where the “viewer” was indeed a “player” and could interact with live actors on stage to become not only a participant in the production – but even take a leading role. The Virtual Actor experiment allowed us to investigate the ability to transport a single online actor onto a live stage using a single VR camera to provide the Point of View of the protagonist. We sought to collide the immersive worlds of VR and Live Theatre, which both seek to uphold the suspension of disbelief, and pushed the boundaries of VR technology to step outside the realm of “pre” and into the impulsive action that is live theatre. The central goal was always to give the audience “participant” the experience of being an actor on stage. We now aim to share this experience through our pre-recorded version of the experience to gauge its potential for future research.