In classical music, the concert-hall format remains much the same as it was a century ago, not least in the way that many performers dress. But away from the concert hall, there are exciting developments that take advantage of the very newest technologies. This week, the Philharmonia, one of London’s (and indeed the world’s) top orchestras, plays its part in a project that is fully of the time we live in, but also looks to the future. Dream is a.
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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.”