DIGITAL DREAM PLAY

Digital Dream Play is adapted from August Strindberg’s A Dream Play. This play was created by Swedish playwright, poet and novelist August Strindberg in 1901 and performed in Stockholm in 1907.

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Early conversations with Digital Dream Play director Tom Scholte examined the potential of current technologies to support the constrained staging permitted during a pandemic. With distancing between actors being a key concern, we asked “What if we could develop an application that could co-locate actors from different positions on the stage to one shared virtual environment?”. 

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Different than a more standard theatre production process, the software development team began experimentation on the Frederic Wood Stage testing the limits of computing power, webcams and mic placement. We created the framework for integrating virtual sets with live lighting in a monumental mix of the virtual and the live. Huge walls of green theatre flats on the Frederic Wood Stage acted as a backdrop for live actors who engaged with one another at a distance through various environments. We focused our UX on the stage management team as they are front and center, calling and operation the show. We embraced a rapid prototyping ethic of early fails and rapid learning so we could be prepared to integrate our technology into the technical rehearsal period of the theatre.