Czechoslovakia’s Laterna magika premiered at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, combining film projection with live performers who appeared to interact with the screen images. It showed that projected moving images could be choreographed as part of stage action, not just used as background. This became a key early model for multimedia theatre stagecraft.
After the Expo 58 success, Laterna magika continued as a permanent theatre practice rather than a one-time fair attraction. As an independent company connected to Prague’s National Theatre, it helped normalize the idea that projection, sound, and lighting systems could be central “performers” in their own right. This shift supported wider experimentation with multimedia stage languages.
Nam June Paik’s 1963 exhibition presented modified television sets and related sound works, reframing TV as a material to manipulate rather than a one-way broadcast device. Even though it was a gallery show, it strongly influenced performance culture by treating electronic images as an active, time-based element—similar to live stage events. This exhibition is widely referenced as a starting point for video art that later fed into multimedia theatre practices.
At Montreal’s Expo 67, Josef Svoboda’s Diapolyekran system used many small projection surfaces that could shift in depth while images changed across them. This pushed stagecraft toward modular screens and engineered motion—an early step toward later digital scenography ideas like reconfigurable surfaces and synchronized media. It also demonstrated how large-scale engineering and image systems could drive new performance aesthetics.
Richard Foreman’s Ontological-Hysteric Theatre developed a style that treated sound cues, visual clutter, and layered stage images as essential structure, not decoration. His work helped establish a modern theatre logic where audiences navigate competing signals—speech, images, and sound—much like later multimedia performance. This approach prepared audiences and artists for stages increasingly shaped by screens and electronic systems.
Robert Wilson and Philip Glass premiered Einstein on the Beach at the Avignon Festival in 1976. Its structure emphasized repeated patterns, stylized movement, and highly controlled lighting and stage pictures, showing how theatre could be organized like a visual-and-musical system rather than a traditional plot. The production became a landmark for modern performance that made design and time-based composition central.
Laterna magika’s long-running Magic Circus premiered in 1977, demonstrating that multimedia performance could sustain a repertoire over time. Its continued presence reinforced projection, lighting, and choreographed image sequences as a stable theatre language, not a one-off experiment. This mattered because later digital scenography would also depend on repeatable technical systems and standardized production methods.
The Wooster Group’s Route 1 & 9 (The Last Act) used video performers and mediated elements as part of the staging at The Performing Garage. The work is a clear example of late-20th-century theatre treating the screen as an actor-like presence that can carry character and timing. It helped define a direction for “postdramatic” stagecraft where live and recorded materials are tightly interwoven.
John Jesurun began Chang in a Void Moon as a serialized performance in downtown New York, using pre-recorded film/video elements within live episodes. By staging a work that behaves like a film series—but performed live—Jesurun highlighted how editing logic, camera framing, and recorded “presence” could reshape theatre structure. This approach influenced later multimedia theatre that borrows pacing and framing from screen media.
In 1983, La Fura dels Baus presented an early version of Accions, a performance built from separate “actions” rather than a single linear plot. While not primarily screen-based, it helped shift stagecraft toward environments, architecture, and sensory design that later multimedia work would often amplify with projection and electronic control. It also strengthened a trend toward immersive, event-like performance formats.
Troika Ranch was founded in 1994 and developed performances where movement could control video, sound, and lighting through interactive systems. This made multimedia more than a design layer: performers’ bodies could directly drive media changes in real time. The company’s work helped establish interaction as a core principle in late-20th-century digital stagecraft.
The Builders Association was founded in 1994 in New York City to make theatre that blends text, stage performance, video, sound, and architectural thinking. Their model treated media production—shooting footage, designing projections, building systems—as part of the theatre-making process from the start. This helped define a clear end-of-century outcome: multimedia had become a stable organizational practice, not just an occasional experiment.
In 1995, the University of Kansas production The Adding Machine used real-time computer graphics and theatre projection, with audiences wearing polarized glasses. It showed that computer-generated imagery could be staged as a live, performance-timed visual environment rather than a fixed pre-rendered backdrop. This was an important bridge from analog projection toward interactive and digitally controlled scenography.
Mark Reaney’s Wings (1996) expanded these experiments by using projection plus head-mounted displays, aiming to blend the audience’s view of live actors with computer-generated imagery. The project illustrates a 1990s pathway toward “mixed reality” stagecraft, where the scenographic image can be personalized and technologically layered. It points to how multimedia theatre was moving beyond shared screens toward individualized viewing systems.
Video and Multimedia Theatre from Nam June Paik to Digital Scenography (1960–2000)