1st Edition
Immersive Storytelling and Spectatorship in Theatre, Museums, and Video Games
Immersive Storytelling and Spectatorship in Theatre, Museums, and Video Games is the first volume to explore immersion as it is experienced in all three of these storytelling forms: the theatre, museums and historic sites, and video games. It theorizes what it means for a work to be called immersive and how immersion impacts audience experience in each of these modes.
The presentation of story is deepened when it involves the spectator in an immersive way. Author Kelly I. Aliano concentrates on the central idea that the use of immersion in each medium allows the story being told to feel present for the spectator. It puts them at the center of the experience, making its events for and about them. Throughout, the book discusses how immersion is employed to make narrative feel more resonant and relevant for the audience. Analyzing the impact of offering a first-hand experience of story events, this book looks at how immersive storytelling can highlight the ways in which we can interact with and shape our understandings of ourselves and our society as well as our histories and identities.
Ideal for students, scholars, and researchers of immersive theatre, spectatorship, museum studies, and video game studies, this is an innovative study into the power of immersive storytelling across three interactive mediums.
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Role of the Theatre Spectator
Chapter 2: The Participatory Audience
Chapter 3: The Theatre as Archive
Interlude I: From the Theatre to the Museum
Chapter 4: Immersive Museum Exhibitions
Chapter 5: Immersive Museum Experiences
Chapter 6: Immersive Historic Sites
Interlude II: From the Museum to the Video Game
Chapter 7: Video Games and Immersive Storytelling
Chapter 8: Video Games and the Immersion into Narrative Worlds
Chapter 9: Video Games and the Immersion into History
Interlude III: Conclusion
Biography
Kelly I. Aliano is the author of two books, Theatre of the Ridiculous: A Critical History (2019) and The Performance of Video Games (2022). She is the Manager of Education Special Projects at The New York Historical Society and teaches in the English Department at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York, USA.
