A Brief History of A Christmas Carol VR

Agile Lens has been reimagining Dickens's classic A Christmas Carol through cutting-edge virtual reality since 2021. What began as a hybrid production has evolved into a fully immersive VR experience that pushes the boundaries of live performance and digital innovation. Here’s a look at how our show has grown each year:

2021 - The Beginning: In collaboration with Actors Theater of Louisville (ATL), Agile Lens was brought in to integrate digital characters and environments into ATL’s annual in-person production of A Christmas Carol. Inspired by our earlier work, ATL’s Artistic Director, Robert Barry Fleming, embraced our proposal to create a fully VR experience of the show. Ari Tarr joined as the virtual cast, and a new tradition was born.

2022 - Going Fully Virtual: We transitioned to a VR-only production, with 60% pre-rendered animations and 40% live performance, allowing for nearly seamless transitions between the two. Audiences could experience the show in VR by sideloading an app and using a custom token as their ticket. We also introduced pixel streaming for an interactive 2D experience via the web.

2023 - Fully Live Performance: This year marked a significant evolution with the addition of Debbie Deer to the cast, taking on the roles of the Christmas Ghosts. Her presence enabled us to perform the show entirely live, eliminating the need for pre-recorded segments. We also introduced an AI-powered Dickens virtual house manager to enhance the pre-show experience. The production became more accessible through the Epic Games Library, alongside major updates to the design elements.

2024 - The Tradition Continues: Ari and Debbie are back to bring the story to life once again. Stay tuned for more exciting innovations and updates as we continue to push the limits of what’s possible in virtual theater.

What to Expect This Year

For 2024, we're focusing on delivering a smooth and high-fidelity standalone VR experience. This year's production is free to download from the Meta Quest Store and streamed live on YouTube. For this year, we're unfortunately not offering the interactive desktop experience. We're playing the long game - we wanted to get the standalone experience right, so we made the choice to focus all of our development efforts there. We hope to see you back on desktop for 2025, and for those of you who'd like to enjoy with others outside of VR, we're very excited about the team of artists we have running the livestream. Those streams are scheduled on our YouTube channel.

Stay Connected
Join us in the Discord channel to stay informed about playtests, updates, and new features. You can also find us there during the shows if you have any issues. We love to hear about your experience. Your feedback will directly impact the final version of this year’s production, and you’ll be part of shaping the future of VR performance!