Surviving The Virtual: Crafting A New Form Of Theater For The Digital Age

Abstract

This thesis proposes a new genre of theater that combines participatory and interactive narratives with virtual reality technologies and traditional theatrical elements to create a form that is capable of responding to the growing desire for interactive entertainment mediums. A series of participatory narrative events, including traditional theater productions, interactive narrative/drama and role-playing games, are analyzed for their potentialities and limitations. These elements are then used to respond to scholarly writings concerning the problems of participatory narrative forms. From this analysis conclusions are drawn about the necessary elements needed to create this new genre of theater, termed interactive virtual theater, or IVT. The elements are then synthesized into a hypothetical picture of what the IVT of the future might look like.