A Laboratory for Imagined Futures

How can theatre use technology to enhance its experience?

Ben Kidd, one half of theatre production company Dead Centre, believes theatre must have relevance to modern-day society. Together with Stefanie Schmitt, a dramaturg and stage manager at Vienna’s Burgtheater, we sat down with him to find out exactly what that means.

GUEST

Ben Kidd is a freelance director and co-artistic director of Dead Centre, a production company based in Dublin. Founded by Bush Moukarzel and Ben Kidd in Dublin in 2012, Dead Centre have gained a reputation as one of Ireland’s most innovative and exciting companies over that time.

HOSTS

Severin Matusek is an editor, producer and strategist who has spent the last decade researching how technology transforms culture, communities and society.

Stefanie Schmitt is a dramaturg, editor, lecturer and stage manager at Vienna’s Burgtheater. Her research includes dramaturgies of the digital, immersive storytelling and the interconnections of acting theory and neuroscience.

IDEAS AND PEOPLE IN CONTEXT

Dead Centre was founded by Bush Moukarazel and Ben Kidd in Dublin in 2012. They have gained a reputation as one of Ireland’s most innovative and exciting companies over that time. https://www.deadcentre.org/

The Second Coming is a poem by W.B Yeats that was written in the wake of the First World War. https://www.npr.org/2020/11/28/939561949/opinion-reading-william-butler-yeats-100-years-later

Pepper’s Ghost is an illusion technique used in theatre, cinema and concerts. It involves using a mirror to highlight a hidden room that’s kept dark and holds a ‘ghostly’ scene. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost

Beckett’s Room is a play produced by Dead Centre. It is a play without performers, telling the story of the apartment in Paris where Samuel Beckett lived with his partner Suzanne during the Second World War. https://www.deadcentre.org/becketts-room

Chekhov’s First Play is a work from Anton Chekhov that was initially dismissed as unstageable. It was brought to life in 2015 by Dead Centre. https://www.deadcentre.org/chekhovs-first-play-1

Die Maschine In Mir is a play which requires the viewer to upload a short recording of themselves, which is then used in the performance. https://www.burgtheater.at/en/production/die-maschine-mir-version-10

Surveillance Capitalism is a book by Shoshana Zuboff that examines how private companies use our data as a means of predicting and controlling our behaviour. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26195941-the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism

TRANSCRIPT

Click here to download the full transcript as PDF.

CREDITS

The Vienna Business Agency supports businesses, the economy and the city in developing the Austrian capital’s creative industries and shaping its future trajectory. viennabusinessagency.at

Editorial Team: Mike Evans, Paul Feigelfeld, Severin Matusek, Elisabeth Noever-Ginthör, Elisa Stockinger, Heinz Wolf.

Theme Music by Zanshin.