Nesling, Antony John; (2024) GamePlay: live-action videogame theatre in drama education. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This research explores secondary school students designing and playing live-action theatre inspired by the procedural operations and aesthetics of videogames. For two decades academics have discussed ICT in drama education and specifically the potential for integrating role-playing videogames (Carroll 2002). Whilst there has been some practical research conducted using ICT in drama education to realise mediated performances with live virtuality in digital and dramatic spaces, and gaming elements are sometimes included, videogames have not been a focus. This project sought to explore the potential for videogames as an inspiration and template for drama-making and drama-playing in the secondary drama classroom. Students were challenged to replace digital, videogame technologies with analogue theatrical resources: bodies, physical materials, light and space. The practical research was conducted over two academic years at an International Baccalaureate World School, the International Academy – Amman in Jordan, comprising seven performances involving over 50 students, aged 15 to 18. Grounded Theory Method was used to explain the challenges faced by students attempting to create and play live, videogame-inspired theatre. The theory realised – ritual digital drama – argues students are challenged to resolve conflicts in three competing categories: World, Role and Function. In World, social-semiotic multimodal theory is used to illustrate how students mobilise the semiotic resources of self, others and environment to immerse players in a metaxis and resolve the conflict between the real and virtual world. In Role, phenomenology is used to consider how students are challenged to resolve a conflict between the role of designer and player, inspiring them to enter a productive state of design-play. In Function, students are challenged to create and operate in ways that resolve conflicts between the social semiotic metafunctions of interaction and representation to design-play procedural narrative. Ritual digital drama recreates the “magic circle” (Huizinga 1949, p.10) turning students into ‘shamans’.

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