The Royal Shakespeare Company and Google Creative Lab team in an attempt to create a new performance experience as they produce a three day, real-time performance of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (June 21st through 23rd). The event will be situated in the real world at the RSC’s home of Stratford-upon-Avon and virtually at Dream 40.  During this production, Google wants people to interact with the play in a myriad of ways as they follow the characters’ journeys through the magical forest of dreams to the final marriage scene between Demetrius and Helena, Lysander and Hermia. People can take part online via a Google+ community hangout and other social media using the hashtag #dream40.  Titled thus on account of this being the 40th full production of the play by the RSC.

The live performance, directed by the RSC’s Artistic Director Gregory Doran, takes place at the outdoor Dell Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Audience members on site will be able to  join in on 23 June by making decorations, writing blessings for the happy couples and by attending the wedding itself as part of the congregation.

Project director at Google Creative Lab Tom Uglow wrote a detailed explanation of how he hopes the play will work on multiple platforms, complete with animation of William Shakespeare himself working with a time-traveling pig.

The experimental nature of Midsummer Night’s Dreaming hopes to explore how or if theatrical performance can engage with the online world in real time. However, Puck is the only character to bridge the live and digital performances with his own online profile.

http://youtu.be/7IatrprhNcU