Author Description

"Visualising Lost Theatres argues that once a theatre is demolished, its theatrical, social, and cultural worlds are also at risk. Yet venues are living systems, not than passive containers of performance. A visualisation-or virtual reconstruction-can provide the visual and immersive feel of a venue, revealing performance logistics for actors and audience. We examine virtual models of the Rose Theatre in 1590s London where Christopher Marlowe's plays were performed; Komediehuset in Bergen, Norway, where Henrik Ibsen learned how to be a playwright in the 1850s; the Queen's Theatre, built in 1841, which represents an empire-building movement in Adelaide, South Australia; Cantonese opera touring in circus tents in Australia's goldfields from the 1850s; and the Stardust showroom in 1950s Las Vegas which shaped commercial theatre for a tourist audience. Each reveals new knowledge about the venues themselves, theatrical form, and performer-audience relationships. The book overall offers a methodology for this new technology in theatre studies: it illustrates how the virtual models can, in conjunction with performers and designers, be performance laboratories to test out the written archive"--