From Conference Hall to Cinema Arthouse
Back to back comparisons of in-person, virtual reality performance.
After prototyping my VR Musical in London, I was invited by The United States Institute of Theatre Technology to present and perform in St. Louis. Unfortunately, the invitation shifted from a “mainstage performance” to a booth with very slow, public WIFI and a television monitor for spectators to see the VR world. This is not uncommon, but I’m also aware that my performances are often people’s first encounter with virtual reality - I needed to make sure a subpar experiences would not dissuade the conference or attendees from the medium overall.
Always hustling, I cold-called local theaters to attempt a partnership and spent several months back and forth planning with an incredible venue in St. Louis… but the month of the event, they backed out! Enter MX MOVIES, a downtown arthouse cinema that happened to be literally across the street from the convention center! All the credit goes to Matt Sanders, the general manager, who went above and beyond to bring the show to the local community.
This offered the perfect opportunity to try back-to-back case studies; first on the expo hall floor as a behind-the-scenes demo (to talk through the WIFI delays) and then invite audiences across the street for a pop-up performance (which supported a local, indie art house).
For the USITT convention goers, I led a cue-to-cue, pausing to talk through what Michael Morran was doing technically to affect the virtual world and what Maurice Soque Jr was doing to juggle the soundscape of three live instruments, backing tracks and sound effect textures. Since this was a technical theater crowd, they enjoyed a glimpse behind the curtain and opportunity to ask questions, punctuated by musical numbers to attract more foot traffic and give a taste of the final result.
Afterwards, we advertised the showtime across the street and… it worked! 50% of our attendees were walk-ups the day-of, suggesting this might be a path to bring immersive content to venues nearby other relevant conferences and conventions.
The online publication XRMUST had previously approached me about a “world hop” livestream and I offered to push a live feed of the St. Louis workshop to their readers/viewers.
Next, I used Instagram to find local videographers for small-scale events and hired The Film Perspective to give us a 4-camera setup to intercut with the Live VR Cinematic that was projected onto the big screen. As of writing this post, the video is the third-highest performing video on the XRMust channel.
I have to give a huge shout out to Deirdre Lyons and Steve Butchko of Ferryman Collective, who shared our adventure presenting their own Gumball Dreams and panel at the convention. Like my trip to AWE last year, I suggested the group rent a house so we could share meals and revelry for the entire weekend. We supported each other’s technical setups, photographed each other, and drove all over the city to take in sights and tastes. As an actor in Ferryman’s shows (which focus on intimacy between 1-3 audience members), it was personally meaningful for me to be able to let them experience the impact of a virtual reality performance in a theater with a live audience and I am so grateful for the camaraderie and community.
I remain fascinated with the scalability of hybrid immersive experiences offering two tiers of on-site audiences for active participation and spectators; as well as the ability for remote attendance (either in the virtual world or via a produced livestream). This model begins to reveal the ideal future use-case for a show-in-a-box to breathe new life into struggling venues while remaining accessible to a global audience.
I’ve had the pleasure of performing live virtual reality in my living room, a black box theatre in London, an IMAX dome in Boston, a proscenium mainstage in South Korea, on expo halls and conference showrooms, and now in an indie arthouse cinema.
And I can’t wait to see where we get invited next!