The Universal Performance Space is a revolutionary format that allows live or prerecorded performance to be staged in a digital environment for audiences to simultaneously consume in VR headsets, with Augmented Reality on phones and tablets, on computers, broadcast to screen and web and directly into physical performance spaces once audiences are allowed to return. A performance can be delivered to any combination of these formats depending on the intended audience, the technology available to them and type of performance the director wants to stage. Upper Ground, London SE1 9PX Tel +44(0)20 7452 3333 Fax +44(0)20 7452 3344 nationaltheatre.org.uk Registered charity No. 224223, Company No. 749504 The intention of the Universal Performance Space is to democratise existing and new forms of performance by bringing it to people’s living rooms and their own devices allowing new performative work to be staged at a time when audiences and performers are not able to come together. Specifically intended to bring performance to audiences at home in response to Covid-19 this platform will also have significant purpose beyond the current period of lockdown and will allow for the development of new performance models moving forward. As we move beyond the period of isolation and can integrate the platform into physical performance spaces we will expand the format out to include Location Based Entertainment venues where communal audiences are free to roam staged environments in Virtual Reality headsets. One household could have different people engaging with the same live performance in different ways: one upstairs having a completely immersive performance in VR with all the agency that allows whilst the rest of the family watch on TV as one of them also brings the performance onto the coffee table in Augmented Reality via their phone. This is a new format for performance and entertainment standing on the shoulders of the existing craft of theatre, performance and staging. The intention for the subsequent phase of work is to move from pure prototype towards the first public facing performance broadcast from the Universal Performance Space. This will be the first in a number of sequentially ambitious stagings that will ultimately lead to the full UPS ambition.

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"The National Theatre has successfully pioneered the provision of always-on captioning for deaf patrons using new speech-following technology and augmented reality glasses. We now want to go further and research the technical and production means to deliver a complete range of immersive access services for a range of would-be theatregoers who need additional content to get the most from a theatre performance, namely translation captions for non-English speakers, personalised sign-language displays for BSL users and audio description for visually impaired people. This project will involve detailed investigation of how best to present the new immersive content to new audiences in a way which is most comfortable for them, using state-of-the-art smart glasses and speech and language technology. A key part of the research will be to assess from the ground up how all the content which goes to make up a theatre performance is complied, edited, communicated and maintained through the lifecycle of the production and how best to integrate that with the range of new immersive content which enables captions, translations, sign language and audio description to be delivered. A key aim is to ensure that the results of the learning and development will be the ability to share the new techniques with other theatres in the West End, in the UK regions, and elsewhere in the world. This key enabling technology will open theatre doors to new audiences, making theatre more inclusive and accessible to a far wider range of people. In streamlining the production process through new technology, we aim to extend audience reach rather than to sacrifice existing jobs. Our aim is to enable and encourage production teams to open up new areas of creativity by being able to reach a wider range of patrons in different ways, and to be alive to future developments in immersive technology which can further extend or enhance the proposition. The significant investment already made by the National Theatre in the development of technology which enables access content to be synchronised automatically to a production as delivered has laid a generic foundation on which additional immersive provision can be built. This project builds on that foundation by researching the new knowledge and techniques required successfully to extend the range of immersive content to reach all those who can make use of it in a truly inclusive way."