RSC collaborates with Google on Midsummer Night’s Dreaming
Taking place live in Stratford-upon-Avon and online, the project will take place over Midsummer weekend (21-24 June) and, according to press material, aims to examine “different ways to make and watch theatre”.
Overseen by Google’s Tom Uglow and the RSC’s Geraldine Collinge, the project will see the story of A Midsummer Night’s Dream told in the real time of the play over three days, performed
by a group of actors directed by RSC artistic director Gregory Doran. It will culminate in a wedding that audiences are invited to attend.
The story will also be reported as it happens by a series of newly-created characters and shared online. According to press: “Audiences across the world will be invited to join in, engage or watch
the story unfold through an online stage powered by Google+, the sharing
tool from Google.”
Doran said of the collaboration: “I am delighted to be working with Google on this truly daring and
innovative project. We will be exploring what happens when one of
Shakespeare’s best loved plays is experienced through the eyes of the
internet.”
Tom Uglow, director of Google’s Creative Lab, added: “Google loves thinking big and we wanted to re-imagine A Midsummer
Night’s Dream for a digital age. Adding a little of our digital fairy
dust to the magic of the RSC, the idea is to take the play from theatre
into the real world, online and off, allowing people who can’t visit to
experience and interact with the play via Google+.”
After the event, the RSC will release an online audio recording of A
Midsummer Night’s Dream performed by the acting company, which will be
annotated with the content and side-stories created over the weekend and posted online.
For more on Midsummer Night’s Dreaming, see google.com/+royalshakespearecompany and search #Dream40 on Twitter.
