The MT Space Project: Making Musicals in the Metaverse

Mary Stewart-David is the creative force behind the Immersical®, an innovative system of narrative design and construction for multi-modal musicals staged in interactive and immersive spaces. Currently she is a PhD researcher with Digital Creativity Labs, University of York, looking at writing and producing new works of virtual musical theatre in the metaverse. In collaboration with Audio Lab at York, Mary is investigating new ways of reducing audio latency to enable and enhance live musical performance across networks at the School of Arts and Creative Technologies at the University of York, where she is currently spinning out her research into a tech start-up, focussed in R&D around live and recorded virtual performance systems. 

Robert Mark Morgan is a creativity and design speaker, professor, designer, and author of The Art of Scenic Design: A Practical Guide to the Creative Process whose designs have been seen all over the U.S. and Canada. Rob is in his 13th year of teaching on the topics of design and creativity at Washington University in St. Louis to undergraduates from all backgrounds and teaches multiple classes on theatrical design, production, and technologies. He has designed professionally in the areas of theatre, film, museum, and theme park venues. His designs have been seen onstage in the U.S. nationally at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, Asolo Repertory Theatre (Sarasota, FL), Indiana Repertory Theatre, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, The Old Globe, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Studio Arena (Buffalo, NY), Childrens Theatre Company (Minneapolis, MN), Cleveland Play House, the MUNY – St. Louis, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Denver Center Theatre Company, Alliance Theatre (Atlanta), Barrington Stage, Marin Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, and American Conservatory Theatre (ACT) in San Francisco