Radically re-imagined for the digital stage via Zoom The Time Machine – A Virtual Reality will take audiences on a virtual psychedelic journey through the wormhole, somersaulting timelines where thousands of parallel universes will challenge everything they thought they knew.
Written back in October 2019, incorporating predictions of the future from Oxford University’s Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities*, the play was performed as a site-specific five-week production at The London Library to celebrate the 125th anniversary of HG Well’s iconic sci-fi novel. Sadly cut short as the prophesies in the play unfolded before our very eyes, Creation Theatre are giving people the opportunity to experience a LIVE virtual reality version. This intimate experience will have limited audience capacity for each show and will run for four weeks with a total of 40 performances from 27 May to 21 June.
Adapted by award-winning playwright Jonathan Holloway (BBC Audio Drama Awards, Edinburgh Fringe First Awards, Prix Italia) and directed by Natasha Rickman (Artistic Associate Jermyn Street, Director Twelfth Night Rose Bankside, Assistant Director for the RSC and The Globe).
Natasha Rickman comments: “Now our time travellers can take our audience anywhere in time and space in the blink of an eye. Our production deals with multiple universes – and in this new version each audience member will have their own journey through the show – including an invitation to choose their own ending. Characters will be playing out scenes at exactly the same time but in different digital rooms, with different actors and varying designs – and which path the audience sees will depend on which universes they find themselves thrown into. That is, if they make it through the show without turning into a squirrel or an astronaut. ”
The set and costumes for the Time Machine – A Virtual Reality has been designed by Ryan Dawson Laight. There is a cast of seven. The line-up of actors are Clare Humphrey (BELGRADE THEATRE, BAC, WEST YORKSHIRE PLAYHOUSE), Rhodri Lewis (NATIONAL THEATRE OF WALES, PAINES PLOUGH), Funlola Olufunwa (GREENWICH THEATRE), Leda Douglas (SOHO THEATRE) and PK Taylor (CREATION THEATRE), who are cast as the Time Travellers. Sarah Edwardson (APOLLO THEATRE, ARCOLA) plays DRSI with Graeme Rose (BIRMINGHAM REP, CREATION THEATRE) as the Computer.
Tickets and performance times can be found here
