Working thesis title: Thinking Theatre in the Metaverse: Theatricality, Drama, and Queer Narrative in Mixed Reality Theatre

Supervisors: Dr Chaitanya Sambrani, Dr Anna Madeleine Raupach, Senior Lecturer, School of Art & Design (Primary Supervisor), Dr Baden Pailthorpe, Senior Lecturer, School of Art & Design (Chair), Dr Erica Seccombe, Senior Lecturer, School of Art & Design (Associate Supervisor)

This practice-led research explores the emerging form of mixed reality (MR) theatre to better understand its embodied theatricality and dramaturgical opportunities that interact with queer narrative. The research is grounded in the context of the growing global and local recognition of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) media, emerging interest in the metaverse in Australia, as well as the increasing patriarchal and conservative digital culture influencing the metaverse. The current primary explorations of theatre and AR and VR have privileged the physical theatre site. There have been only a number of explorations that conceptualise theatre in the cyberspace of AR and VR, and few have stressed the theatricality in such performances.
   
   This research seeks to understand the questions: ‘How does mixed reality theatre disrupt and reform theatricality and open new dramaturgical opportunities, given the complicated intersection of theatre, the metaverse, and the human experience?’ and ‘how do the dramaturgical opportunities in MR theatre interact with queer narrative to generate affectual queer performances in the metaverse?’ My studio practice prioritises a research-based theatre making method to develop a series of MR theatre performances focusing on AR and VR’s cyberspace as new theatre site in the metaverse. I bring my Chinese immigrant and queer perspectives into my practices to seek new dramaturgical opportunities for queer narrative in MR theatre. Furthermore, I examine the epistemology of theatre in AR and VR’s cyberspace to contribute to the philosophy of theatre.