About

This research will lead to a significant original contribution to the field of scenography and archival practice by providing systematic documentation of the methods and processes utilised during the production of immersive theatre. Working closely with the National Theatre archive and the NT Immersive Storytelling Studio, it will provide a methodology for archiving the creative decision-making process, incorporating all the elements of production from initial concept to realisation. The complex integrative nature of immersive theatre that increasingly combines virtual reality, rich audio-visual design and site-specific performance spaces has prompted a fast-moving period of creative innovation, making it difficult for academic research to keep up. Where research has been undertaken, it has tended to focus on audience reception. This project is therefore timely because it will expand discussions beyond audience reception and experience to encompass a close analysis of the processes involved in the making of immersive work, offering strategies as to how these rapidly changing processes may be captured before they are lost. ​By producing a store of digital assets and materials, the outcomes of this research will therefore offer cultural value as a legacy of creative process preserved for analysis, contextualisation and dissemination that will be made available to smaller theatre companies for their own reference. It will also provide artistic value by inspiring others to re-interpret, re-imagine, and re-present these works to wider audiences. And it will provide educational value as a unique cache of previously unseen production artefacts, offering insight into the creative process.