The Virtual
The Virtual |
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About The Virtual O |
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Shakespeare's Henry V alludes to The Globe Theatre as "this wooden O."
Built in 1599, the theatre's construction material (wood and plaster) and shape (octagonal
to roundish) suggested this nickname for the structure that served as home for the
presentation of Shakespeare's plays. Some 400 years later this Virtual O uses cyber space
as its scaffold to bring forth a presentation of interactive projects based on
Shakespeare's plays. The Virtual O was created by a class of 32 New York University
undergraduate students in the spring semester 2000. All were enrolled in the Tisch School
of the Art's Department of Drama course Shakespeare on Line: The Virtual O -- H28.0700
sec. 02. The class was led by Joe E. Jeffreys. The class read and discussed eight Shakespeare plays. The plays read were selected by the class via electronic balloting. We also read Shakespearean critical and historical materials. In addition, the class investigated Shakespeare's relation to the world wide web. The tremendous scope of Shakespearean materials on the web were identified, explored and evaluated in terms of their educational, scholarly, cultural, entertainment and financial significance. We looked at and dissected web sites ranging from those offering digital reproductions of the plays in quarto or folio editions to on line concordances to the latest Shakespeare items available for bid at e-bay. The class learned basic web authoring skills and as final projects each student, with the knowledge of what the web had to offer on the subject, created a web site of their own based on one of Shakespeare's 37 plays. Plays were assigned at random the first day of class and students gave individual presentations to the class on their play and virtual final project throughout the semester. Click to see the class -- Shakespeare on Line -- web site including a wide ranging starter set of Shakespeare links.
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New York University Tisch School of the Arts Department of
Drama, Undergraduate