Would you like to try the very same XR performance tools used by the Royal Shakespeare Company ? Or experience the magic of inviting remote collaborators into a shared virtual play space ?
Join Alex Coulombe, Kevin Laibson, and special VR guest Ari Tarr for a two-part participatory workshop series prototyping the future of virtual rehearsal and performance. In partnership with the RSC, we've been developing a flexible rehearsal environment designed to support actors, directors, stage managers, and designers across in-person, remote, and hybrid productions.
But this isn't a product demo — it's a live experiment. We've begun integrating performance tools from our broader XR portfolio (including A Christmas Carol VR, PerforMR, Songs of the Ambassador, and The Orchard Off-Broadway, and most recently Your Mind, Girls…) and we need your help to distinguish the pragmatic and delightful from the confusing and barbaric.
Whether you're a performer, director, worldbuilder, or simply curious about the messy, magical process of making theater with machines — come help us break stuff and imagine better workflows together as we offer up these tools publicly for the very first time !
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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