BIOGRAPHY

ABSTRACT

Live Players on a Virtual Stage: Gaming and Shakespearean Comedy

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" game reshapes Shakespeare's stage, casting students as live players on a virtual stage. Taking on the roles of characters from the drama, students attempt to achieve various goals as they make their way through Athens and its surrounding woodlands: love triangles form; actors prepare for a performance while several forces outside of their control impede their progress; fairies vie for control of a changeling boy. And a chaotic (but magical) game play ensues as the game's characters interact. In this presentation, Joseph Haughey will introduce the game more fully and explore its value as a classroom tool for introducing students to a challenging work. The exercise serves as an excellent pre-reading exercise for a wide variety of students that prepares them to begin reading the physical printed text, with a firm foundation of the play's setting, characters, and conflicts.