All the world’s a virtual mash-up: Adapting Shakespeare for animated virtual reality

Abstract

Shakespeare’s global reach is undeniable; one only has to look to Shakespeare’s role in the western literary and cultural canon for proof. With the variety of people staging and watching Shakespeare all over the world, it is to be expected that Shakespeare’s plays are also the target of many adaptations that take advantage of evolving technologies to reach new audiences in new ways. This article briefly addresses common modes of adaptation and its impact on audience engagement before moving onto considering newer technologies – specifically virtual reality (VR) – that have yet to become as well utilized. Investigating the advantages and disadvantages of VR animation allows us to contextualize our own work: ShakesVR, a mash-up of three Shakespeare plays into an animated VR experience. This article also discusses the importance we place on the viewer’s interactions with Shakespeare’s world, our own goals for audience engagement and how these goals influenced our design decisions in ShakesVR.