EXPLORING THE FUSION OF THEATRE, XR, GAMING & TECHNOLOGY
BIO
I am part of a small band of pioneering storytellers working at the intersection of theatre and immersive technology. In April 2023 I became the new creative director of Groundling XR (Toronto) and I am the former creative director of the VR storytelling studio, Relative Motion.
Having earned a masters degree in directing from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, I worked extensively directing musicals, new writing, classics and opera in London. In 2017, I began developing my specialism in narrative virtual reality. With support from Arts Council England (ACE) and Visualise, I created Shakespeare VR (acknowledged by UKRI as an outstanding and influential immersive experience from the last 20 years) and Reorientation, an R&D collaboration with Breaking Fourth Ltd. My work with Relative Motion includes Tosca VR (commissioned by The Space), Edward II VR (ACE and The Barn Theatre, Cirencester) and three new VR experiences with Sheffield’s Music-in-The-Round. Relative Motion lead the production and development of the British Council funded VR experience, In A Thousand Silences, with Palestine's, The Freedom Theatre. Relative Motion also created the Backstage Virtual Tour for the Chichester Festival Theatre's Digital Stages project - winner of the 2022 UK Theatre Award for Digital Innovation.
As a consultant in digital and immersive storytelling, I've worked with leading theatre organisations including the Royal Opera House, Chichester Festival Theatre, and the Stratford Festival of Canada. I was part of the 2019 Royal Shakespeare Company/Magic Leap Extended Fellowship Cohort and a member of Digital Catapult's 5G Testbed in London/Brighton. I was a guest speaker for Screen Industries Northern Ireland, and I developed & facilitated workshops in narrative VR for the MA in Contemporary Circus at the Stockholm University of the Arts and the Langham Directors Programme at the Stratford Festival of Canada.
My current work includes a new VR musical project (London) and R&D on the fusion of virtual production technology and live theatre (Toronto). I'm also engaged in research on the video game industry, the Metaverse, and Web 3, with the aim of developing a series of talks on the opportunities that these areas offer theatre artists and organisations.
VALUED COLLABORATORS
