The Performance of Our Innovations in Virtual Theatre - Metaverse Shakespeare Presentation @ VWBPE

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education
PerformanceInnovations Virtual Theatre
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Metaverse Shakespeare Company (MSC), aka, mShakespeareis
a professional theatre company based in SL.
curator of the most historically accurate theatres and architecture relating to William Shakespeare in virtual worlds.
(formerly SL Shakespeare Company!)
The MSC is an independent organization.
Fiscal Sponsor: sLiterary, Inc. (NPO, arts in virtual worlds)
Not affiliated with Linden Lab (Second Life)
Not affiliated with any one institution, though many have participated, and all are welcome to participate.
Origins
Founded in 2007 by Ina Centaur
Funded and supported completely by the residents of Second Life
Introduction, Part I

Introduction, Part II
Productions – Quality and with Passion and Innovation
Main Canon: A single full-length Shakespearean play/year
Several smaller productions other than the main play
RSC Methods of scansion/analysis with rigorous rehearsals
Embrace SL: Open auditions - Most actors have never met in RL.
An innovation introduced with each main canon production
Immersive Performance Environment – Cinematic atmosphere
SL Globe Theatre
To-Scale replica of Shakespeare’s second Globe Theatre
Set in the midst of an an arts mecca in virtual worlds.
Blackfriars Theatre
World’s only complete replica of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre.
Perfect for Elizabethan-style black box theatre.

Effects in Education - Setting
“Open Access” Philosophy
Participation: Anyone can join or witness our public events.
Open Venues:
sLiterary, Inc.
sLiterary is a nonprofit organization dedicated to furthering the arts in virtual worlds—to create “What Second Life can be!”
sLiterary Venues - Always Open to the Public
Metaverse Shakespeare Venues are sLiteraryVenues
Over 50 venues, only some examples shown
Brief preview and event listings at each venue are available at http://venues.sLiterary.org
Anyone can book *their* public event for free
Shared Content:
Creative Commons Licensing for Not-for-profit Use of Content
Attribution+Noncommercial+ShareAlike (by-nc-sa)

Via “Open Access”, we’ve reached both current students and “potential students”
Current Students:
Supplementing existing for-credit RL courses
Shakespeare, Film & Theatre Courses
Witness/Discuss a live Shakespearean play virtually @ SL Globe or Blackfriars
(UC Davis, Bryn Mawr, MPC, Stanford, UT)
New Media Courses
Observations of best practices in literary artistic uses of new media
(UCSC, CSU, HVCC)
History Courses
Lectures given in a virtual construction of a historic venue “bring history to life”
(Oberlin, Princeton, Waldorf)
Recreational, not-for-credit courses on SL
Voice Acting courses, Hobbyist courses
“RP” courses on SL
Engaging the “potential student”:
General Public
Reaching out to unincorporated audiences in rural and inner city areas—many of whom have never seen a live theatrical performance before
Effects in Education - Results

Effects in Education – And Research
Effects, in general, for historically accurate immersive settings and activities, with/without theatrical supplements
Education
Engages the student in a way beyond traditional textbooks
Students learn in an intimate first-hand way when immersed in a historically-accurate setting
An ultimate globally-accessible form of asynchronous learning
Research
Provides an authentic medium for simulation of and experiments on era-activities
Insights in era activities, even from passive observations
Case Study – Historically Accurate, Blackfriars Theatre

The Bad
Limited audience per sim. Not the unlimited theatre one would expect
Current Solution: - 4-sim stage/theatre
But, client-side lag may still strike.
Down-side: Lag and Many users of SL outdated graphics cards, more users, more to render.
Audience perspectives differ takes extreme toll in “User experiences may vary.”
Often Haphazard or “Borked”
Voice
Media Stream – Variable delay between avatar movement and voice arrival
SL Voice – “Instantaneous” Uncertain expectations
Randomly disrupted
Sometimes disabled for hours
Crash!
Limitations Due to Linden Lab (More to come in Part III—Socioeconomic Insights)
Unprofessional (BBB F)
Unexpected, haphazard policy changes
Uncertain service uptime, complete or partial failure
Closed-source server – no way to add mo-cap, etc
The Good
Proven L$-spending userbase. Possible to sustain tier even in a non-profit way (though not without its difficulties)
Immersive world—while some come on SL just for the show, they can also explore the world beyond in-depth, become immersed in it, like a true alter reality—or, like visiting a new country.
SL as a Platform for Virtual Theatre

MSC Innovations in Virtual Theatre, I
Accessibility
Closed-Captioning, live subtitles provided in English and other languages.
Appearances
Lip-synching
LSL Script-based (Dec. 2007) – Regular/Sculpted-Talking Face
Built-in (June 2008)
House/Director-control of audience view
Default-View Cushions
Live Director-Control
Distinctive Avatars
Semi-Photorealistic Faces to convey a quintessential human element in avatar visage
Tailored and Custom-Made Costumes that define each character
Designed and Dressed by professionals

MSC Innovations in Virtual Theatre, II
Optimized Sets
Texture, script optimized
Preload on alpha=0 and unseen sides of prims
Touch-click action
Multi-Sets for large audience
Sets pre-rezzed
Set-placer instead of set-rezzer
Toggle-touch to place in/out
Yet More Technological Innovations on the Virtual Stage
Global Lighting
Virtual Storm
Usage of Physics
Automaton actors
Avatar-based
Prim-based

MSC, in context of SL’s status quo and infrastructure
Second Life is a very material world
Island sims cost US$300/month, and setup fees for empty islands have cost up to US$1600. Nonprofit/Edu sims are discounted at 50% - $150/month, up to US$800 setup. This does not include any construction or content-creation costs.
The vast majority of content and islands on SL are commercial.
Most educational/nonprofit endeavors on SL are funded by external sources, whether the institution itself or grants.
MSC, along with all sLiterary endeavors, involves island sims that are 100% “dedicated to the arts”—and are currently completely funded and supported by the residents of SL.
Meritocracy in a miserly v.w. based on nitty-gritty microeconomics
We operate on Merit
Not everyone gets to create for us. We examine hundreds of thousands of creations yearly. We do blind evaluations by quality of work.
We make sure to give our best back in our creations.
As a result: Thousands of residents have donated to support our cause.
Full Transparency
Usage of any public funds are reported to a Transparency website.
Script-facilitated donation beacons instantly report each donation to a public website, broadcast immediately by the official donation beacon, and accessible by all.
Political intrigue
Coups, back-stabbings, slander/libel, Machiavellian deviousness, the works—even if all this is happening in what you might think a “game world” real people take it very seriously, enough for these complex social phenomena to occur.
Socioeconomic Insights from MSC

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The Performance of Our Innovations in Virtual Theatre - Metaverse Shakespeare Presentation @ VWBPE

by Ina Centaur on Mar 13, 2010

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