GRACE SHELTON
Midsummer
Midsummer: Shakespeare Through the Park is an immersive theater concept for a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The play is transformed into a physcial world that guests are invited into as an interactive night walk.
Overview
Using the Newfields campus in Indianapolis as my parameters, Midsummer was created as a conceptual way to introduce large scale immersive theater to the Indianapolis market. Instead of a promenade, guests would be able to exist inside of each scene along with the players in an interactive vignette. Traditional theater would still be happening as the Mechanicals roam the gardens and perform their play within a play.
Project Breakdown
Production
January 2023 - May 2023
I started this project by conducting interviews with current and former staff of Newfields to gather information on their current seasonal night walks and events. From there I did a site visit and mapped out the structure of the event including production needs and interactive moments.
Writing and Concept
Show Writing
Concept Art 2D/3D
After creating the event structure I wrote a log line and synopsis for each scene as if it was a moment in a haunted house or walk through attraction. I made general concept art, pitch deck, and a show bill, and kept the theme consistent for each piece of the presentation. Finally, I created a mock up of the Dreamy Confusion hedge maze in Unreal using Quixel and Adobe Stock assets.
Capstone Presentation
May 5, 2023
This project was presented at the 2023 IUPUI CGT Senior Showcase to an audience of professors, families, and industry professionals.
Reflection
Developing this concept came with a few hurdles that I was not expecting at the beginning of the process. The first was how the story needed to be handled so that even people who had not read the play would still be able to follow along without a promenade. My original idea was an interactive app combined with beacon technology, but this idea was scrapped once my mentors pointed out that walking around a lighted night walk is the last place that people want to use their phones. I pivoted to a physical show bill to provide context to each scene. This allowed me to keep the gamification and story explanation piece I wanted - but, being low tech, it integrated better into the purpose of the event: an introduction to immersive theater.