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Interactive Theater

In 1998, Carnegie Mellon Human Resources began using Interactive Theater performances to spur dialogue among faculty and staff about sensitive workplace issues such as race relations, sexual harassment, and organizational change.  Audience members watch a ten-minute scenario performed by professional actors.  Then, the audience is invited to discuss the scenario with the characters as they stay in role.  The question and answer session is followed by a discussion facilitated by human resources personnel.

InterACT: Interactive Theater goes Digital

During this seven-week project, we adapted the live Interactive Theater experience to be delivered on DVD-Rom   for use as a training tool for Carnegie Mellon's Human Resources department.  We used a word and pattern matching technology called, Synthetic Interview, to simulate the open question and answer session.  We based our project content on “A Talking To,” a scenario which deals with diversity and race relations.  Like traditional Interactive Theater performances, the software, training tool is not intended to provide solutions to sensitive workplace issues, but rather to raise awareness and allow the user to explore new perspectives.

 

Carnegie Mellon

Entertainment Technology Center

www.etc.cmu.edu