Curious about the toybox of tools we’re building with the RSC? Drop in if you missed the workshop on the 4th!
This informal demo offers guided walkthroughs of the core virtual and mixed reality toolset Agile Lens has developed for remote and hybrid theatrical rehearsals and performances. Kevin Laibson and Alex Coulombe will demo the environment, avatar and prop controls, script integration, voice spatialization, and other features — with time for questions, feedback.
Think of this as open studio hours for the XR rehearsal lab: low stakes, high curiosity, and a chance to get your hands (virtually) dirty. No prep or performance experience required — just show up and nerd out with us.
From the Artist
This project sits at the intersection of theatrical craft and digital experimentation. It began as a response to a very practical question from the Royal Shakespeare Company: what would it mean to rehearse a classical play in a fully virtual environment, with the fidelity and flexibility required by a professional production?
From there, our team at Agile Lens expanded the inquiry. What if this rehearsal space could also serve the performers and creators we've collaborated with working in VR performance, social worlds, and hybrid formats? What if it could support improvisation, puppeteering, remote collaboration, and live audience interaction — all while remaining intuitive and lightweight?
The work shown here draws from four years of iterative XR performance development alongside such partners as the Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Arlekin Players, WLAB, Lincoln Center, and the Park Avenue Armory. It’s part toolkit, part sandbox, and part provocation. We’re not just presenting a solution; we’re inviting Worlds in Play participants, who we value as the perfect community of creative collaborators to premier this for, to challenge our assumptions, stress-test our features, and co-develop the next generation of tools for theater-makers working across real and virtual space.
Credits
Developed by Agile Lens
Research Partnership: Royal Shakespeare Company, XR Network+, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Threshold Acoustics, Preevue
Developers: Alex Coulombe, Dante Cameron, Yu Jun Yeh, Marshall Nowak
Researchers: David Gochfeld, Kevin Laibson, Ari Tarr, Sam Crane, Kate Lane, Lisa Lokshina
Developed by Agile Lens
Research Partnership: Royal Shakespeare Company, XR Network+, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Threshold Acoustics, Preevue
Developers: Alex Coulombe, Dante Cameron, Yu Jun Yeh, Marshall Nowak
Researchers: David Gochfeld, Kevin Laibson, Ari Tarr, Sam Crane, Kate Lane, Lisa Lokshina
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