Today, March 2, 2022, is the First Ever VR Theatre Fair in AltspaceVR presented by the Educators in VR Theatre Team exploring XR performance and production.

The Theatre Team is bringing in experts, performers, producers, script and play writers, world builders and designers, and others to offer career and skill-building advice to those eager to enter into the theatre and production industry in virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality, wherever the immersive technology takes them.

In the past few months, the new Theatre Team brought us amazing discussions and presentations on the ground-breaking and boundary-pushing technology in use across many different social VR platforms. We’ve discussed how to act through the fixed limitations of avatars, how building for stage productions comes with the ability to realize scenes beyond imagination and how they cope with the challenges of current technology, and how XR, especially virtual reality, has kept artistic spirits alive and thriving during the extended lockdown.

The Educators in VR Theatre Team Project explores theatrical performance, design, and production in VR/XR through a series of workshops, seminars, and experiential development for educators, students, researchers, and those using performance techniques in education and therapy.

For information on how to attend an Educators in VR event in AltspaceVR or elsewhere, see our How to Attend a VR Event Guide.

Immersive performance and productions are now more commonplace than ever before. Recently shared articles, productions, resources, and research in our Educators in VR Discord channel for the Theatre Team highlight the diverse careers and job opportunities:

• UI makes immersive virtual theater a reality, Iowa Now, University oif Iowa
• Acting in a Virtual World – Carnegie Mellon University News, March 2021
• Creating Immersive Performances using Virtual Reality Technologies – University Of Worcester
• Acting in Virtual Reality, CVE ’00: Proceedings of the third international conference on Collaborative virtual environments, September 2000 Pages 103–110 (PDF) (ACM Digital Library)
• Seeing Alone Yet Together: Modern-day Tiresias in VR theatre: Performance Research: Vol 26, No 1-2
• The Geometry of Storytelling: Theatrical Use of Space for 360-degree Videos and Virtual Reality, Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
• A history of virtual reality in performance: International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media: Vol 2, No 1
• How Technology Is Augmenting Traditional Theater
• RMB City Theater Project by Cao Fei, Artissima, Arthub
• Augmented Reality Theater Takes a Bow. In Your Kitchen. – The New York Times
• 2022 NoPro Audience Award Nominees by No Proscenium, Jan, 2022
• Inside Dark Bay, the spinning LED volume at the heart of Netflix’s upcoming ‘1899’ – TechCrunch
• FIVARS – Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories
• Podcast: A Slice of Heavenue, Our interview with Alex Coulombe, XRchitect’s new XR Performance Platform – No Proscenium
• These Are The VR Projects Heading To Sundance 2022 – UploadVR
• The Wedge Virtual Reality Theatre, Research Paper, Rob Boswell, Plasma Research Laboratory and Henry Gardner, Department of Computer Science, at Australian National University, Apple University Consortium Academic and Developers Conference, 2001, pp. 2.1-2.6
• Virtual Reality and the Theatre: Immersion in Virtual Worlds: Digital Creativity: Vol 10, No 3
• Missing in Action: Embodied Experience and Virtual Reality on JSTOR
• How VR and AR are Changing the World of Immersive Theater — AMT Lab @ CMU
• AMERICAN THEATRE, VR Theatre Doesn’t Seem So Distant Anymore
• With real theaters closed, actors are turning to virtual reality – CNET
• The pandemic revolutionized theater and the performing arts. Get used to seeing musicals with a VR headset on – Fortune
• How Immersive Virtual Reality Theatre Pushes the Limits of Storytelling, by Kathryn Yu, No Proscenium
• Departures, Life From Unexpected Perspectives
• Shakespeare in virtual reality: is this the future of theatre? – The Mancunion
• Virtual Play: Beckettian Experiments in Virtual Reality – Contemporary Theatre Review
• Virtual Reality Theatre – European Space Agency

To keep up with the Educators in VR Theatre Team events and all Educators in VR events in AltspaceVR, subscribe to the Educators in VR Channel and to our Educators in VR Google Calendar of events, workshops, classes, and conferences.