Company type | Private |
---|---|
Genre | Theatrical company |
Key people | Ina Centaur (visual director) |
Website | www.slshakespeare.com |
The Metaverse Shakespeare Company, (previously known as the SL Shakespeare Company [1] ) produces Shakespearean and other plays in the Second Life virtual world. Professional and amateur talent is used for productions in a replica of the Globe Theater. The actors are special purpose avatars, controlled by prerecorded and real time live input. [2] The initial program audiences are residents of Second Life, however performances are available outside Second Life. The first abbreviated performance was of a scene from Hamlet in February 2008 under the guidance of Ina Centaur, the company’s Visual Director. The company is funded by donations.
The Globe Theater in Second Life is life-size from the viewpoint of a Second Life user. The reconstruction includes the theater from the outer walls, to the inside seating galleries, to the stage. It is the most historically accurate 3D rendition of the theater on the Internet. [3] All of the building components which are visible to the audience resemble the modern-day replica in London. To view a live production, a Second Life avatar stands on the floor or sits in a gallery seat. Similar to a non-virtual production, it is possible to talk with other audience members or to make public comments. This is in keeping with the goal to allow audience interaction with the players similar to that of Shakespeare's time. [4] Audio dialog is augmented by subtitling, which has been available in French, German, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. [5] The audience is asked to observe other guidelines related to the virtual environment, as described in the SL Shakespeare Company Audience Guide. [6]
The Blackfriars Theater in Second Life is one of two working models in Second Life. However this reconstruction is just one interpretation of the interior of the building, this reconstruction does not take into account the exterior of the building itself. Lora Constantine quotes “Blackfriars, as the name implies, has quite a lot to do with friars. In fact, the original playhouse was ‘built’ inside a building in a centuries-old stone friary… Nowadays, we would consider [the playhouse] just interior decoration or remodeling.” [7]
The company's first production was Hamlet , Act 1, Scene 1 in February 2008, which was followed by Act 3, Scene 2 in April. In June 2008 the company took a break from Hamlet and started to work on a staged reading (not performance) of Twelfth Night . On September 12, 2008, the company opened their first modern play, One’s a Pawn of Time by Mike Dedrian. [8] The company then returned to Twelfth Night and staged the first act of the play starting in November, 2008. No full-length Shakespearean play has been produced due to funding issues. [9]
In December 2008 the company developed Shakespeare on Ice as part of the Second Life: On Winter Solstice 2008. Shakespeare on Ice was a 24-hour ongoing festival which revived characters and plots from previous SL Shakespeare Company productions, with the aim to entertain and educate. In February 2009 the company started work on Twelfth Night , Act 1: The Open Ended Run, which premiered on March 1 and ran every Sunday and every Tuesday until the companies closure on October 29. Ina Centaur closed with this statement "The Shakespeare Primtings sLiterary and Skin City sims will go down on Oct 29 or thereabouts. The process in which sims are deactivated is not usually punctual – we aren’t sure exactly when the executioners would finally pull the plug, but when they do, it will be the end of our Second Life." [10]
The technological aspects of the play rely mainly on bot technology which could be categorised in two main groups i.e. Infobots that are based on archived data and Avabots characterised by some AI which real-time live input by actors. The Avabots are synched with the actors' gestures and animations according to their lines. [11]
Avatars in Second Life move from place-to-place in real time under human control, however body poses and facial expressions are limited to pre-defined animations and scripts. Metaverse Shakespeare Company productions augments this, including two ways: by creating new animations, and with post-production lip sync. [12] In the Second Life virtual world, one has the ability to either watch events from a static position, or to move the view to a place that is away from one’s avatar. Thus, while in Second Life, the viewer can zoom, or choose any angle from which to watch the animations. This requires the representations of the stage actors to be viewable even at a close distance.
The avatar character bodies for Hamlet were created to suit each character, while a wardrobe resembling historically correct clothing was purpose-built, or assembled from Second Life vendors. In Twelfth Night the emphasis on period clothing was relaxed. [13]
Much of the design and production work is volunteer. Other expenses for 2009 are L$1,510,000 (approximately US$5830), which is largely to pay Second Life for land sufficient to support large audiences.
In May, 2011, Ina Centaur shared her fear in an emotional blog post [14] that two sims from the 4-Sim SL Globe Theatre would be deleted later on in the year and hence the theatre itself would go down as well. Her account in Second Life was already locked and though Primting and Shakespeare managed to cover their tier costs through donations, it was unlikely that The Globe Theatre would be saved.
In an adieu post, [15] the Metaverse Shakespeare company announced that Shakespeare, Primtings, sLiterary and Skin City sims which would go down at the end 2011 due to high tier costs and insufficient fundings. Although the company tried to raise enough profit through various sponsorship campaigns, season ticket deals and tickets for opening night. Increase in revenue in SL as there are only few who pay entry fees for an attraction. Further, the post depicts reasons for Ina Centaur's decision to quit. [16]
Richard Burbage was an English stage actor, widely considered to have been one of the most famous actors of the Globe Theatre and of his time. In addition to being a stage actor, he was also a theatre owner, entrepreneur, and painter. He was the younger brother of Cuthbert Burbage. They were both actors in drama. Burbage was a business associate and friend to William Shakespeare.
The Globe Theatre was a theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare. It was built in 1599 at Southwark, close to the south bank of the Thames, by Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men. It was destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613. A second Globe Theatre was built on the same site by June 1614 and stayed open until the London theatre closures of 1642. As well as plays by Shakespeare, early works by Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker and John Fletcher were first performed here.
Second Life is an online video game that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user-created content within a multi-user online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Francisco–based firm Linden Lab and launched on June 23, 2003, it saw rapid growth for some years and in 2013 it had approximately one million regular users. Growth eventually stabilized, and by the end of 2017 the active user count had declined to "between 800,000 and 900,000". In many ways, Second Life is similar to massively multiplayer online role-playing games; nevertheless, Linden Lab is emphatic that their creation is not a game: "There is no manufactured conflict, no set objective."
The Lord Chamberlain's Men was a company of actors, or a "playing company", for which William Shakespeare wrote during most of his career. Richard Burbage played most of the lead roles, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Formed at the end of a period of flux in the theatrical world of London, it had become, by 1603, one of the two leading companies of the city and was subsequently patronized by James I.
Virtual crime, can be described as a criminal act conducted in a virtual world -- usually massively multiplayer online role-playing games, MMORPGs. To grasp the definition of virtual crime, the modern interpretation of the term "virtual" must be assessed to portray the implications of virtual crime. In this sense, virtual crime describes those online acts that “evoke the effects of real crime” but are not widely considered to be prosecutable acts.
Shakespeare's Globe is a realistic true-to-history reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse first built in 1599 for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays. Like the original, it is located on the south bank of the River Thames, in Southwark, London. The reconstruction was completed in 1997 and while concentrating on Shakespeare's work also hosts a variety of other theatrical productions. Part of the Globe's complex also hosts the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse for smaller, indoor productions, in a setting which also recalls the period.
Anshe Chung is an avatar of Ailin Graef in the online world Second Life. Referred to as the "Rockefeller of Second Life" by CNN, Graef has built an online business that engages in development, brokerage, and arbitrage of virtual land, items, and currencies. Her work has been discussed in Business Week, Fortune and Red Herring.
The American Shakespeare Center (ASC) is a regional theatre company located in Staunton, Virginia, that focuses on the plays of William Shakespeare; his contemporaries Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Christopher Marlowe; and works related to Shakespeare, like James Goldman's The Lion in Winter and Bob Carlton's Return to the Forbidden Planet.
In the virtual world of Second Life, there are a number of in-world business and user-groups founded specifically for the game, some of which have become legal entities in their own right, as well as preexisting companies and organizations that have involved themselves in the world.
Thousands of performances of William Shakespeare's plays have been staged since the end of the 16th century. While Shakespeare was alive, many of his greatest plays were performed by the Lord Chamberlain's Men and King's Men acting companies at the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres. Among the actors of these original performances were Richard Burbage, Richard Cowley, and William Kempe.
Cyberformance refers to live theatrical performances in which remote participants are enabled to work together in real time through the medium of the internet, employing technologies such as chat applications or purpose-built, multiuser, real-time collaborative software. Cyberformance is also known as online performance, networked performance, telematic performance, and digital theatre; there is as yet no consensus on which term should be preferred, but cyberformance has the advantage of compactness. For example, it is commonly employed by users of the UpStage platform to designate a special type of Performance art activity taking place in a cyber-artistic environment.
Google Lively was a web-based virtual environment created and developed by Google. It was discontinued and permanently shut down on December 31, 2008.
Virtual worlds are playing an increasingly important role in education, especially in language learning. By March 2007 it was estimated that over 200 universities or academic institutions were involved in Second Life. Joe Miller, Linden Lab Vice President of Platform and Technology Development, claimed in 2009 that "Language learning is the most common education-based activity in Second Life". Many mainstream language institutes and private language schools are now using 3D virtual environments to support language learning.
Arts in Second Life is an artistic area of a 3D social network that has served, since 2003, as a platform for various artistic pursuits and exhibitions.
Shakespeare in the Park is a term for outdoor festivals featuring productions of William Shakespeare's plays. The term originated with the New York Shakespeare Festival in New York City's Central Park, originally created by Joseph Papp. This concept has been adapted by many theatre companies, and over time, this name has expanded to encompass outdoor theatre productions of the playwright's works performed all over the world.
Michelle Terry is an Olivier Award–winning English actress and writer, known for her extensive work for Shakespeare's Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, as well as her television work, notably writing and starring in the Sky One television series The Café. Terry took up the role of artistic director at Shakespeare's Globe in April 2018.
Avatar Repertory Theater commonly known as ART,is a theatre troupe that performs primarily in the virtual world Second Life, though they have recently extended to other virtual platforms such as OSGrid and Kitely.
The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is an indoor theatre forming part of the Shakespeare's Globe complex, along with the recreated Globe Theatre on Bankside in Southwark, London. Built by making use of 17th-century plans for an indoor English theatre, the playhouse recalls the layout and style of the Blackfriars Theatre, although it is not an exact reconstruction. Unlike the Globe, the original Blackfriars was not in Southwark but rather across the river.
Pop-up Globe was a New Zealand theatre production company, based in Auckland, New Zealand. It produced Jacobean theatre, particularly the works of Shakespeare, in specially-built temporary replicas of the second Globe, the theatre Shakespeare and his company built and used. The company's theatre was the world's first full-scale reconstruction of the Second Globe Theatre (1614–44).
Sinespace is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online Unity 3D-based platform created and published by Sine Wave Entertainment. It enables users to create and sell 3D content and interact with others as 3D avatars. It was beta launched in November 2016 and teamed up with Unity to make its SDK available in the Unity Asset Store in March 2019. It supports Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Windows Mixed Reality headsets, but is also accessible through PC, Mac, Linux, and Chrome web browsers.