Coney is an experimental theatre company (or “agency of play,” in their words), always looking to create new theatrical formats. With a NESTA Digital R&D grant, and working with Goldsmiths University and video streaming service Showcaster, they created Better Than Life as an attempt to build a show that would be as engaging for an online audience as it was for the live audience in the venue.
“Intriguing glimpses of a number of possible futures”
The Guardian
My role was a curious combination of writer and performer. As well as writing a lot of the fictional material on the project’s website, I also played the role of Dave, the moderator of the chat room where the online audience could talk to each other and to the play’s characters.
Across the half-dozen performances, we re-shaped the show and tested different types of interaction. It was an exhilarating and exhausting experiment!
David Varela 