Abstracts:

2PM PT: The Performance of our Innovations in Virtual Theatre
The Metaverse Shakespeare Company (formerly SL Shakespeare Company) recounts and briefly analyzes a number of its innovations in virtual theatre—what worked, what didn’t work, and what evolved into something totally unexpected. Several crucial areas in virtual theatre will be discussed in context of past productions: virtual theatre for supplementing existing RL courses; reaching out to a global audience, especially those in rural and inner city areas; SL as a platform for virtual theatre; enhancements made to SL as a platform for virtual theatre; and socioeconomic insights in running a professional virtual theatre that is self-sufficient without external funds.

6PM PT: Efficient Information Conveyance in Virtual Historical Reconstructions and Museum Settings: Touring Shakespeare sim and Primtings Museum
The Shakespeare sim features virtual reconstructions of architecture of note in Shakespeare’s lifetime. Primtings Museum exhibits “prim’d paintings”–3D interpretations of 2D paintings. Whether conjectural historical replicas or interpretations of currently existing RL designs, these virtual venues and artifacts contain built-in educational or research information modules: for example, Shakespeare sim uses both display boards and inline “incognito” discovery objects; Primtings demonstrates how a large virtual museum with dozens of exhibits can feature both RL traditional placement in locational galleries, and SL optimizations, such as TP directories. In addition to highlighting methods of information dissemination that fully utilize the 3D nature of SL, we will also discuss activities at these venues, as well as techniques used in building both accurate buildings and prim-efficient builds on Second Life. The itinerary starts at the Blackfriars Theatre, in the southwest part of the Shakespeare sim in the first part of the tour, then heads north to the 4-sim SL Globe Theatre, before finishing at Primtings Museum. While primarily aimed at educators, librarians, and museum curators, this tour should also be an enjoyable experience for the curious public.

Here is the powerpoint for my 2 PM VWBPE Presentation:

(Much of the first session will also take data from these previous SL Shakespeare/mShakespeare presentations:

)

If you miss these sessions, you can still take a look at the Metaverse Shakespeare exhibit booth at VWBPE South - anytime before the VWBPE conference is over.

See the full PR here for further details.

mShakespeare’s SOS Campaign Becomes Save Our Shakespeare:  

Shakespeare, Second Life: The Metaverse Shakespeare Company (MSC), formerly SL Shakespeare Company (SLSC), today refreshes the MSC SOS Campaign, its grid-wide network of donation kiosks. The running total is still displayed instantly both inworld and on the web, but the SOS Campaign website has been updated at http://sos.mshakespeare.com and SOS has evolved from “Save Our Sims” to “Save Our Shakespeare.”

Artistic Director Ina Centaur two years ago eloquently expressed the greater significance of the Metaverse Shakespeare endeavor, “Our goal is to create a good within Second Life for the world to thrive from—because it is possible… [this] truly humanitarian cause that we are fighting for—to bring theatre to the farthest reaches of the world, to give Shakespeare to those who would not have had the chance to experience his words in the live and intimate form they were written for, to use this nascent medium to bring the most quintessential culture to the metaverse and beyond.”

In light of this abstract value which the sims have been platform for, those contributing to the cause will be effectively saving more than sims—they will be saving Shakespeare on Second Life, with its potential to unite the world. Perhaps phenomenal for a project of its scope, the Metaverse Shakespeare Company is completely independent of any external funding, resident-supported and resident-funded.

Anyone can help support the MSC SOS Campaign by donating to or rezzing a donation kiosk, available by clicking on any of the current kiosks at the SL Globe Theatre, or by visiting one of the kiosks listed at http://sos.mshakespeare.com  

Launched in December 2008, the SOS Campaign, through the support of over a thousand residents, has raised over L$1.5 million in funds to help the Metaverse Shakespeare Company cover tier fees for three of its four island sims. In February 2010, the third sim—Primtings—became self-supporting due to Primtings Campaign, but continues to donate a corner of its sim space to MSC to maintain the 4-Sim SL Globe Theatre.

The SOS is now responsible for raising tier for just two island sims—Shakespeare and sLiterary. As with previous years, unused funds will remain in the MSC Endowment until needed. Any and all uses of publicly raised funds through the SOS Campaign will be reported to the MSC Transparency website at http://transparency.mshakespeare.com

Related PR’s:
SOS Campaign Launch - November 2008
SOS Campaign January 2009 Update

About the Metaverse Shakespeare Company (mShakespeare)
Headquartered in the virtual world of Second Life (SL), the Metaverse Shakespeare Company (MSC) is the flagship project of sLiterary’s Virtual Reality Shakespeare Initiative (VRSI). MSC is a professional virtual theatre company that embraces the best of what the metaverse has to offer. While it is primarily known to provide quality live Shakespearean theatre available to anyone in any location, MSC is also the curator of the most historically accurate theatres and architecture in virtual worlds relating to William Shakespeare.

Website: http://mshakespeare.com
Press Center: http://mshakespeare.com/press
Blog: http://blog.mshakespeare.com
Playbills: http://playbills.mshakespeare.com
Programmes: http://programmes.mshakespeare.com

About sLiterary
sLiterary, Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to furthering literary and artistic endeavors in Second Life and other virtual worlds.

About Second Life
Second Life is a free online virtual world imagined and created by its residents.

Neither the Metaverse Shakespeare Company nor sLiterary is affiliated with Linden Lab. Second Life is a trademark of Linden Lab. No infringement is intended.

Malvolio: What employment have we here? Scene 5

This Act 2 poster is based on an unedited SL snapshot of Sir Toby Belch in the Metaverse Shakespeare Company’s design of the set for Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 5: Olivia’s Garden.

This Act 2 poster is based on an unedited SL snapshot of Feste the Fool in the Metaverse Shakespeare Company’s design of the set for Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 4: Orsino’s Court - Mezzanine.

A2S5

A2S3 Settings:

Here’s the wall (bare, and in need of your messages!):

and… Send in your graffiti messages and flyer ideas as comments to this thread–below:

OEP1: Twelfth Night, Act 1 - 2009 Open Ended Run (pdf 5 MB) or Issuu

Our four-sim venue with 3-sim audience seating is generally packed with ~300 avatars for each show in our main Shakespearean repertoire. The SL Globe Theatre is in Showcases/popular places and receives a fair amount of natural traffic on non-event days. Our website receives hundreds of thousands of views per month. We’re #1 on a Google search on several keywords for our main repertoire - here are just some examples: Twelfth Night open ended run, Twelfth Night director’s interpretation, Twelfth Night props, private performances, .

Please click here for more details on ordering an ad–or that ultimate message to that special someone!

Our past programme booklets are posted at http://programmes.mshakespeare.com

A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?

The mention of “patience on a monument” seems as out of place as the “worm i’the bud”, so it seems natural that Viola’s character might have “taken inspiration” via an item on the set.

“Patience on a Monument” is often a sculpture on the tombs of kings, most famously seen in Louis XII’s tomb (as noted in Heckscher, William S. “Shakespeare in His Relationship to the Visual Arts: A Study in Paradox”. Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama. 13-14 (1970-71). Eds. Schoenbaum, S. pp 40). The two images cited here both show a seated woman in “patient grief” (for the lack of a better phrase). A woman chained, whether to a windowsill (to pine forever, for the rest of her life), or a woman chained to a pole–as more poignantly shown in that St. Denis tomb of Louis XII’s, whose figure is also turned in a pose that shows both strain from and desire to leave this post, and yet, she cannot.

More imagery of Louis XII’s tomb is available here and here and here and here, specifically on that sculpture of the cardinal virtue of Patience here and here. A closeup showing sculpture texture is here.

As mentioned in my director’s notes, it might be because the Duke has a statue reminiscent of such imagery, in his court. Or, it might be because Viola had just sauntered through Olivia’s Garden, as emissary to Olivia from Orsiino (and back again)–having seen the stylized “guardian sculpture” on the grave of Olivia’s late brother.