What does it mean to play in VR?
It seems a straightforward question. Meta, Valve, Sony, Google, and even Apple all sell games that substitute your reality for a simulated one with rules to learn governing your interactions. These storefronts, however, do little to sell the unique benefits VR offers in embodiment and transportation.
“We’re all given this kind of carnival license in this sort of anonymous space to play,” said Ferryman Collective co-founder Deirdre V. Lyons. “We often as adults forget how important it is. How it re-energizes our lives and how it informs our lives and how it allows us to create bonds and special moments that we often don’t allow ourselves time to do.”
The Ferryman Collective is a kind of theatre troupe that travels from place to place inside virtual reality to host intimate interactive performances. Most often they perform in VRChat and these days they’re hosting performances of their Emmy-nominated production Uncanny Alley: A New Day. At AWE in Long Beach, California earlier this year I attended one of their other productions alongside Scott Stein, working together with him to make music guided by a performer physically located in Utah.
Before the Ferryman Collective formed Lyons was one of the performers who breathed life into Tender Claws acting in The Under Presents and The Tempest. I find live theatre to be one of the most inspiring uses of VR technology, but from Tender Claws to VRChat the productions Ferryman undertakes strain the platforms that host them. And still, some of the most emotionally impactful experiences you might have in VR can happen during one of these performances.
“Our work in VR comes to life at the intersection of motion pictures, live theater, and interactive video games,” Ferryman co-founder Stephen Butchko said on the Good VR Podcast. “We pull from all three of those modalities to bring this work to life…this sense of play is for me a release. It is an expression of vulnerability and it’s a sharing of story and emotions with my fellow thespians and audience participants that join us in these performances.”
I spoke with Lyons and Butchko about VR theatre for around an hour and trimmed the conversation down to around 43 minutes using the podcasting platform Riverside.
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