Bring Theatre into Technology

I had the pleasure of being on the advisory board of the European Theatre Lab and, I have to say, I am really happy with the outcome so far. We are on a very interesting journey with quite ambitious goals guided by the question: How can we bring technology and theatre together?

To start with, I think one of the biggest achievements of this project was the collaboration of different communities: people from the theatre, people with a technical background and people from the media arts. The outcome thus far has shown us that theatre is, so to speak, joining the game. We suddenly have a very strong, ambitious, serious and professional approach to this collaborative work within the theatre field.

Some of the projects really made brave and risky efforts to involve a lot of technology – the way they were able to master it is incredible. But I think the most exciting thing has not only been producing inspiring projects, but projects that are really showing possibilities, next steps and new directions. I think it’s very important to go in this direction, and then go even further. And maybe even to start thinking of this collaboration in a broader way, where it is no longer about exploring “how to bring technology into theatre”, but about how can we bring the quality and expertise of the theatre into technology? How can theatre help us to develop technology in a way that the future it produces is a future that we would like to live in?

Photo: Stage Your City premiere in Staatstheater Karlsruhe/Germany. ©Tom Kohler