Technology Brings New Interest, Crowds to Closed Theaters
July 11, 2021
FILE - The Royal Shakespeare Company s theatre complex is seen in Stratford-upon-Avon, Britain, March 22, 2019. (REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo)
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For many people involved in the theater, the past year has been difficult. For others, coronavirus closures have provided new
opportunities using technology.
Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company is one example.
Even before COVID-19 restrictions closed theaters, the company had shared recorded performances as movies. This helped people who could not get to London or New York City to see the live shows.
A Midsummer Night s Dream, Sprinkled With High-Tech Fairy Dust nytimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nytimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Welcome to the weekend. I’m
Carolina A. Miranda, arts and urban design columnist at the Los Angeles Times, and I am baaaaaaack. Thanks to my colleagues for holding down the newsletter fort while I spent two weeks in a pandemic resort of my own making, which consisted of generally not moving while reading novels, watching movies and dipping into the wide selection of liquor options that now come in adorable little cans. I’m
The Juergen Teller internet hoo-ha
My kid could do that.
A version of that age-old debate cropped up on social media last week when
W Magazine unveiled its annual “Best Performances” portfolio featuring George Clooney, Riz Ahmed, LaKeith Stainfield and many other stars photographed by
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Eight actors are deep into rehearsal in a studio in Portsmouth, England, a little more than a week before the first public performance of “Dream,” the Royal Shakespeare Company’s online work inspired by “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” As the actors work, director Robin McNicholas rattles off some of the cultural touchstones that inspired the production. Among them: popular video game “Fortnite” and “Bandersnatch,”the choice-driven episode of Netflix’s “Black Mirror.”
“The games industry releases a work and iterates,” says McNicholas. “As users interact, living story worlds evolve. We see that in mass-audience examples such as ‘Fortnite.’ The dynamic that causes that is somehow so much more compelling than, say, a traditional model of beginning, middle and end. In this show, we’ve made sure each production is going to be very different.”