I’m very excited to launch the second Extreme Improv book. The Ultimate Guide to Creating Virtual Theatre has been a secret project in the works for a while, and it’s great to launch the book. I hope anyone reading this article will be excited to get a copy, and if you’re on the fence hopefully this will help tip you toward picking one up.
I’m very excited by the world of virtual theatre. Virtual theatre is a term that didn’t really exist before 2020, and it was developed because there was no other choice during the lockdowns of the pandemic. But now virtual theatre has been discovered by so many I can see huge potential in it, and think it has a very bright future.
Virtual theatre allows you to perform with people from all over the world and beam yourself out to a worldwide audience. This cannot be done with traditional in-person theatre. You can also create virtual shows at a fraction of the cost of stage shows.
And this isn’t to say that I’m turning away from stage shows. Far from it. Virtual theatre shows actually give an excellent opportunity to try out new formats, new scripts and new concepts which can later be taken to stage.
This book will help those who find the tech part of virtual shows tricky and make it all very simple. It’ll also help performers with advice on how to act for virtual theatre. You’ll also learn a lot of stuff to help with marketing, social media platforms and all kinds of things that is part of the modern world which is dominated by TikTok, Facebook, Youtube and Instagram.
Virtual theatre is still so very new as a concept itself, and it has a few challenges which are mostly tech based. Software has improved so much in the last couple of years and will only continue to improve. Internet speeds and connections will also improve and as this happens I see a world where virtual theatre will be just as common as stage and film performance, if not more so.
I think that anyone on the fence with virtual theatre should dive in and learn it now to continue to innovate and be a pioneer of the medium.
This is one of the reasons I wrote the EXtreme Improv Ultimate Guide to Creating Virtual Theatre. I have loved creating virtual shows and want to do what I can to support it’s continued growth as a medium in the future.
When I wrote my first book, the Extreme Improv Big Book of Improv Games, I did so to help spread a lot of my original improv games. I loved developing new improv games and want them to become the new standard games everyone wants to play. In this same sense, I want there to be more virtual theatre, and if my new book can teach people how to level up their virtual theatre game then I am excited to do so.
There are some people who didn’t enjoy virtual theatre and didn’t take part, and others who have backed away from it now that performing on stage is an option again. This is their choice, but I would say this to them as food for thought:
When in history has anything that has moved towards technology ever moved back away from it again?
Genuine question, that I’d love ananswer for as I can’t think of one example. Everything that has moved towards technology has only ever moved more and more towards it and continually improved as a result. Live performance on stage will always exist, but just as live music or film has improved with records and VHS tapes to CDs and DVDs and now streaming, the improvements of technology has made it easier for artists and performers of all kinds to get their work seen and heard.
We’re just scratching the surface with what virtual theatre can be. The Extreme Improv Ultimate Guide to Creating Virtual Theatre gives you detailed guides to set up your shows, design them, operate them, perform in them and so much more.
I’ve really tried to think of everything involved in my process of creating virtual theatre and put it into the book for readers.
The Extreme Improv Ultimate Guide to Creating Virtual Theatre is available now from Amazon worldwide. You can find links to your local Amazon website on our dedicated page for the book here.
