In the first part of this article, we had the chance to introduce the fascinating world and engaging experience of UNCANNY ALLEY: A NEW DAY directed by Stephen Butchko and Rick Treweek, and produced by Ferryman Collective and Virtual Worlds Company, uncovering one of the fundamental challenges of live immersive performances: finding actors capable of bringing them to life (and we’re not talking about amateurs here. Handling the audience’s… responses… requires top-tier performances. Mica broccolini, eh).
In this second part, we’ll take a closer look at other challenges that the Ferryman Collective team have faced over the years to ensure the success of their productions.
These include how to build a collective performance, how to teach the rules of the game to newcomers (those unfamiliar with the genre), and how to tackle the stimulating demands that often come from the audience.
And here’s the people that joined us in this intense interview: theatrical director Stephen Butchko and artistic director Rick Treweek (MetaRick); Deirdre V. Lyons, producer and assistant director with Whitton Frank, producer, and Brendan Bradley (themselves directors of extraordinary pieces of immersive reality who also perform in the show), and Christopher Lane Davis (AKA Screaming Color), who creates visually stunning animations that complement the world MetaRick created (the show’s lead designer and visual artist) as well as the music and sound manager.
Challenge 2: Seize the opportunities of a collective construction of the performance
Creating an immersive show like UNCANNY ALLEY: A NEW DAY, along with all the performance work that surrounds it, requires ongoing adaptation and development that doesn’t stop when the curtain rises, nor is it ever left to chance.
Christopher Davis, aka Screaming Color, shares how much of the work done for The Severance Theory: Welcome to Respite and later for GUMBALL DREAMS focused on the collaboration between different performers and their participation in each other’s rehearsals.
“The script is, of course, the foundation, but in the end, our individual performances are about 75% the script and 25% our own interpretations. For me, a significant part of that 25% – about 20% – comes from what I learn from the other teams. This was particularly evident with the Mandarin production of GUMBALL DREAMS, which premiered at the Kaohsiung Film Festival. Initially, I planned to have an assistant director to help me with the script since I don’t speak Mandarin. However, I couldn’t find anyone available to attend all the rehearsals, so I decided to make each rehearsal a group effort. We held two-hour sessions where one person would perform while the others followed along with their scripts. Then we rotated. By the time the festival arrived, everyone had seen each other’s performances four or five times and was deeply influenced by them.“
The consequence of this choice was a collective definition of the character played by the various performers, the deity Onyx. “We ended up with this sort of hive mind of Onyx that was a cluster of everyone’s different ideas coming together with their slightly different tones and flavors. It was extremely beneficial for characters’ creation but also for our bonding as performers”.
Brendan Bradley also emphasizes the importance of the rehearsal process in immersive productions, noting how it fundamentally enhances the ability to structure improvisational responses to audience input.
“We’re part of the rehearsal process very early. We do test shows, and Steve and Deirdre especially come through as dummy audience members with us for multiple iterations. They embody different types of audiences: some that are very interactive and others that are more passive. This helps us gauge what we might encounter during the actual performances”. The consequence is that “as performers, we actually start learning multiple versions of the show. In each version, there comes a moment when I can sense the type of audience we’re facing, and then I know how to pivot into the appropriate version of the show”.
Challenge 3: Learning the rules of the game: engaging with non-immersive audiences
Not all audiences of a virtual experience are the same. A given statement by now, although it is still not a given that an immersive work makes precise choices in relation to the target audience.
A film festival like Venice tends to attract a diverse range of attendees, from industry experts to enthusiasts, from the curious to those arriving from across the canal, ready to critique the novelty (which, after eight years of programming, is no longer so novel, come on, folks).
It is within this context that audiences who have never worn a headset before find themselves participating in works like UNCANNY ALLEY: A NEW DAY. These individuals require careful guidance throughout the experience, particularly during the onboarding phase.
“The onboarding is the hardest technical thing for us”, Stephen Butchko explains. “VRChat is a great platform to stage our shows, but it’s not built just for us and so we have only a certain amount of control over the audience’s agency. We can’t just have a menu with preset options when the users come in”
“The biggest challenge, by far” Rick Treweek explains, “is working with people who have never had a virtual experience before. There’s no way to guide them through it; they literally don’t know how to navigate the VR space, which can be very frustrating for them. However, this frustration isn’t about the show itself – it stems from their discomfort with the technology. Once you remove that unfamiliarity, the frustration dissipates. As creators, our next challenge is figuring out how to onboard audiences who simply don’t know how to engage with these experiences.”
The actors’ performance is, once again, a fundamental element in effectively addressing any challenges that may arise in the relationship between audience and technology.
This is true even as technological advancements have provided new solutions to support the cast in managing the virtual environment. One such solution is the streamlined experience made possible for UNCANNY ALLEY: A NEW DAY by Screaming Color and Rick Treweek, which allows actors to activate certain elements remotely, as participants enter the scene.
Another significant source of conflict between new users, performance, and the immersive virtual show lies in the very concept at the heart of the work: the idea of a live performance.
“What’s really interesting”, Rick Treweek says with a chuckle, “is how many people new to these shows don’t realize there are actually live actors involved! Many of my friends who came to the show told me how amazing those AI characters were, and I had to explain that there were real people behind them. When they realize that, they simply can’t wait to come back […] This blurring between characters played by actors and characters who are really NPCs and not knowing who is who is something I find really interesting. It pushes people, in a way, to respond to NPCs almost as if they were human beings, and that, at the same time, makes NPCs more alive and more engaging”.
The dynamics that emerge from this overlapping of identities were already clearly evident in one of the most renowned immersive virtual theater works in the industry: THE UNDER PRESENTS by Tender Claws. This production has fostered an organic community of enthusiasts by offering the audience the chance to become part of the story and interact with what initially appear to be mere NPCs from a video game.
“In those shows,” Whitton Frank explains, ”there were avatars, who existed in the world independently as NPCs but whom we could then occasionally inhabit and animate in our performances. This is the magic that Rick also refers to in some ways, what people would come back for: the hope of finding that specific avatar animated by a live person during that specific performance. People made schedules trying to predict when the actors were live! This is a way to convince people to come and see the show again and again: will it be live? Will it be not? The uncertainty of it makes the experience even more precious and tasty, like when you imagined as a child that your toys could come to life at any moment!”
But this isn’t the only intriguing dynamic that unfolds in live performances. Another overlapping of identities occurs when a participant becomes so deeply immersed in the character they are portraying that they are mistaken for a professional actor by the rest of the audience.
“This happened during the NON-PLAYER CHARACTER performances we presented at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last August”, Brendan Bradley confirms. “Most of the reviewers who attended the performances didn’t realize that the audience members were actually participating as actors; they assumed they were all professionals. I think that’s the beauty of this format – it creates a fascinating confusion about the boundaries of the experience. Once you understand the rules of the game, you want to return with this newfound knowledge”.
Challenge 4: Facing the challenges posed by the audience
The complexity of engaging with the audience does not arise solely in the presence of those unfamiliar with immersive experiences. It also manifests, albeit in different ways, with individuals who are familiar with these realms, particularly in relation to video games and immersive theater. Whitton Frank explains the unique characteristics of audiences coming from gaming backgrounds:
“In the video game community, people want to test the world. They want to test the boundaries. Some games are so good that they just want to see where it breaks. Out of curiosity, not out of maliciousness. A genuine curiosity to know about the world. And I appreciate that about the gamer community”.
In contrast, the more traditional audience behaves differently: “It’s quite difficult,” Whitton continues, “to get the traditional theater or film audience to interact, because they’re accustomed to sitting passively in a space and just being voyeurs, observing the performance.”
“Priya Parker, in The Art of Gathering, talks about intentionality and being very specific with the intention of any gathering, any collective of people”, Brendan Bradley explains. “What storytelling is so good at is we all know what the etiquette is. We all know the ritual of going to a theater or playing a video game. Those rules are defined. So when the audience is able to discover the intentionality of this space (the immersive one), they will realize everything is allowed. There are no right or wrong ways to interact. When you build for interactivity, you have to build for all types of interactivity, which includes passivity. That is an option. So no matter what happens, the show never goes wrong”.
The question of “what happens” can be quite complex at times. In one performance of UNCANNY ALLEY: A NEW DAY, Whitton Frank herself encountered a challenging situation with an audience member who reacted to the performative cues in unexpected and unpleasant ways.
“It took me a moment,” she clarifies, “to respond to this person because their comment was so unusual. It was very different from the kinds of responses we typically receive. What frustrated me was that they were detracting from the experiences of others. When someone makes a moment all about themselves, it shifts the focus away from the entire audience”.
This is yet another complex challenge that demands significant creative skills, particularly for the Ferryman Collective team, which, unlike other studios, doesn’t just include scenes in their shows where the audience is explicitly invited to participate; they also allow audience members the freedom to insert themselves into the story essentially whenever they wish.
When we look at other immersive theater productions with virtual elements, we can see some differences in audience engagement in Brendan Bradley’s recent work, NON-PLAYER CHARACTER: A VIRTUAL REALITY MUSICAL. The director himself takes a closer look at what happens in his show:
“I believe that all storytelling technology has never truly left radio; it’s just evolved through different mechanisms in the same ongoing dialogue we’ve always had with radio storytelling content. That’s why I see VR as akin to hosting a radio show, where you’re the caller sharing your personal stories and anecdotes while I remain in control. I can hang up on you if I need to; I can steer the narrative wherever I want and shape the world, but you still feel like you’re having influencing it”.
He continues, reflecting on the relationship between his show and those created by the Ferryman Collective: “UNCANNY ALLEY: A NEW DAY is a deeply intimate piece where people share very personal, profound experiences, while mine is more like a Morning Show. Both utilize the structure of personal connection, blending and blurring the lines between audience and performer, constantly shifting between the two. Yet, they each allow the genre to speak for itself.
What the Ferryman Collective has achieved in terms of intimacy is unparalleled, to me. But for this reason, it is all the more challenging to manage as a performer. If my set falls apart, that’s fine, because I’m not as precious or concerned about achieving a specific type of emotional resonance. I’m aiming for fun and games. But when I’m part of a Ferryman show, I can’t let the world break down with Onyx or Adam and still reach the conclusion, climax, and empathy that everyone is seeking, because that’s the essence of this genre and tone”.
Speaking of Brendan Bradley’s show, it’s important to notice that NON-PLAYER CHARACTER: A VIRTUAL REALITY MUSICAL is one of the very rare examples of comedy in VR.
“XR isn’t funny. Time to fix that, “ appears in large letters on the page of the landing page of the Immersive Friction Lab, “a talent development program for creatives exploring humor in XR”.
We won’t dwell now on the specific topic of “comedy” right now, but on a broader issue related to the evolution of performance, which in the course of our conversation Whitton Frank summed up effectively: “We would love to have more varied content, because that’s how we can educate our audiences. Film and TV audiences today are incredibly knowledgeable and discerning about their tastes. Whether or not you agree with one person’s taste, that person has a very clear sense of what they enjoy and what they don’t. Some audiences will love Joker: Folie à Deux, while others won’t – and both opinions are valid. There are enough alternatives for those who don’t like the movie, so that no one will get “hurt”. In our field, at the moment, things are a bit trickier, because we don’t have the leeway. There are immersive experiences available that span various genres, but we’re talking about one experience per genre and one company representing each type. We need a lot more than that, and that’s one of the challenges we must address.”
Make sure to catch up on the introduction and the first part at this link. And get ready, because we’ll soon be presenting the final challenges of live immersive performances…
For more info about Ferryman’s next shows, click the link.
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