The University of Warwick Newsletter June 1998
Many theatre scholars have been frustrated by the fact that until recently, it has been impossible to understand fully what audiences experienced when they saw artistic performances in famous historic theatre complexes, because the buildings have been destroyed long ago. However, a group lead by Professor Beacham of the Scholl of Theatre Studies, has received funding to support a unique project to recreate three dimensional virtual copies of all Europe's most historically important theatres in a CD-ROM and on-line based package. This will soon allow theatre enthusiasts to enter into the "reality" of historic theatres in ways not possible simply through reading a book and using one's imagination.
The European Commission has awarded £500,000 to this project, which brings together a number of European partners including the University of Amsterdam, the Foundation of the Hellenic World in Athens, architects Atelier 4D in Berlin, UK multimedia company THEATRON, Dutch multimedia company SPC training, the Architectural Heritage Division of the Council of Europe, and the Institute of Engineering of the University of Ferrari in Italy.
The project goes far beyond simply producing aesthetically pleasing 3D models of theatres. The selection of "virtual" theatres will be packaged with CD-ROM and on-line user interfaces to enable students, teachers and researchers to access a great deal of both graphic and textual material, illustrating and exploring the history, evolution, variety and current range of theatrical practice in Europe. Users will be able to access and study essential elements of theatres as time, space, acoustics, lighting and sightlines, which are difficult to convey with books alone.
Detailed reconstructions have already been put together of a number of historically important theatres, including the theatres of Pompey and Pompeii, the Paris Opera, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, the Teatro Olympico at Vicenza Italy, the Hellerau Festspielhaus near Dresden, the ancient Greek theatres of Messene and Dionysus, the Theatre Royal Drury Lane (designed by Sir Christopher Wren) and Sir John Vanbrugh's Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket. The project is an ongoing learning resource and all the partners in the consortium will be trained to allow them to continue to add more material to the initial CD-ROM.