First ever Second Life musical to be ‘staged’ online

Published Tuesday 31 July 2007 at 16:55 by Lalayn Baluch

Internet-based virtual world Second Life is to stage its first ever online musical, Joined at the Heart, this week.

Set up by Fusion Unity, the technicians who streamed the website’s first interactive comedy gig with Jimmy Carr, the production can be viewed by any of the seven million Second Life ‘residents’ around the world when it is streamed live on August 4 at 7.30pm.

Mark Duffy, 3D manager of Fusion Unity, told The Stage: “It [Second Life] is a business tool - this proves it. People from all around the world can attend a premiere or a launch event, and actually be able to see it without invitations, travel or costs. This is the first musical to be streamed, and it just shows what is possible.

“You can log in, see the play and see people’s reaction to it. They will be able to turn round at the end and say it was a classic, or it was rubbish, and you’ll get that interaction the same way you would with an audience.”

Joined at the Heart is an original musical by Graham Brown and Geoff Meads, based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In the real world, the production has a 30-strong cast and will run at The Junction in Cambridge from August 1 to 4. It will then play at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from August 12 to 18.

Brown, the show’s composer and musical director, added: “I have always been looking for an angle to promote the show. And I think that the press need an angle, and want something a little bit out of the ordinary because musicals are coming out all the time.

“It will get us some publicity and encourage people to come along and see it. It is quite nice to make a little bit of history, because it is something so unusual.”

Fusion Unity will also be running a Second Life live stream of the opening night of a Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra show in September.