Brendan Bradley is a multi-award winning actor and writer from over 100 television shows, movies and video games. As an early mover in storytelling technology, he founded The Innovation Lab at NYU’S Tisch School of the Arts and was a Finalist for The Producer Guild of America’s Innovation Award. We caught up with this theatrical pioneer to find out more about his show, Non-Player Character, currently showing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
STARBURST: How would you pitch Non-Player Character: A Virtual Reality Musical to Nintendo fans?
Brendan Bradley: I think Nintendo’s brand focus is community – many of their consoles are built with multiplayer in mind. It’s not just your relationship to the game, it’s about your relationship with each other while playing the game (‘Enter Player Two’). In Non-Player Character, we opted for the simpler mechanics and graphics of web-based VR to prioritise multi-user collaboration and accessibility. Every performance feels like staying up late, driving the wrong direction in Mario Cart not to ‘win’ but to play. After growing up with tethered consoles, the web invited us to gathering around others’ consoles and snarkily chat… but now the we can step inside the website and play along. Non-Player Character was designed to bring that experience on stage, with four audience members joining me in virtual reality as the ‘players’ of a fictional video game while the seated spectators watch and play along using 360 projects and a web app on their mobile devices. Out hope is to challenge the theatre and gaming’s definition of the word ‘play’.
And how would you pitch it to an elderly chess player?
I have a secret – I’m not a very good video game player. When I act in video games, like Resident Evil or Marvel’s Midnight Suns, I love to watch expert streamers play on launch day. There is incredible mastery in any genre of gaming and each player has a unique personality and player style – and that’s ultimately what makes each and every game different and exciting. Chess, especially, is about holding tension and space, reacting to what the opponent does. Half of Non-Player Character’s story is fully improvised by the audience players who guide a non-playable character with no agency of their own through the open world. Ultimately, the show is about how each audience plays it.
Why a musical?
Because there is so much audience participation and collaboration, I need a way to subtly steer the narrative as well as take back control in moments of short spectacle to deepen our understanding of the character and transition us to the next chapter. That’s a musical! The songs arise out of moments of heightened emotion to further the story, elevating us beyond a video game and into the internal thoughts of our protagonist – like I say in the opening number, “We’re singing along an un-skippable cut-scene song”.
When I first began writing the show, I wanted to onboard and off-board the audience into the world while in-character, as part of the story and performance. The first song Maurice Soque Jr and I wrote was the finale as a sung meditation to take the audience participants out of their VR headsets, out of the game, and reunite them with the seated audience in the theatre. Maurice joining me on-stage as a one man orchestra pit further elevated the experience because he is also improvising the underscoring based on the audience participation.
How much does technology enhance the show?
I prefer a different ‘e’ word. The umbrella term for this technology is ‘extended reality’, and through that lens, Non-Player Character is extending the world of the performer, the characters and the story through virtual and projected content. Virtual reality is the answer to Shakespeare’s question of what “can we contain within this wooden O” by letting the audience freely roam an unlimited landscape without leaving the theatre. Our Technical Director, Michael Morran has always wanted to bring theatrical cueing to real-time web experiences – just like how traditional stage cues can trigger the costumes, scenery, lighting and more. Allowing four audience participants to become characters invites them to co-create the story with me every night. And because any device can connect to the experience, the audience has a companion mobile phone that can spawn objects, vote on key decisions, and type messages.
What was the the most challenging thing about this show’s production?
Stable WIFI is non-negotiable. This can be a challenge when applying to festivals like Fringe, but in that challenge is opportunity. Because we couldn’t use some of the more traditional venues, we were introduced to YOTEL Edinburgh’s Imaginex 360 projection room, the only one of its kind in Scotland. I never imagined we’d be able to surround the seated audience with the virtual world without them wearing a headset – and now we can! Even more serendipitous, YOTEL took us on as artists in residence so we get to stay on-sight for the festival run! While other shows are loading in and out with a short turnaround, we get to come down the elevator and perform every night at 9PM a few blocks from The Scott Memorial and Waverly Station.
How messy does this get?
The reason there are not a lot of projects like Non-Player Character is because it’s an incredibly dangerous tightrope to walk. In the opening number, I sing “You can control the adventure” and I am completely at the mercy of what the audience participants say and do with only my songs to subtly steer the narrative and regain control. But it never goes wrong, it only goes fun. No two shows are alike as some audiences really connect to the emotional storytelling and take the journey seriously, some just want to goof off, and others accidentally break the game and we have to troubleshoot. I’ve heard this referred to as ‘responsive entertainment’ because there’s no bot or script – I am responding directly to what happens and creates enormous opportunity for humour, surprise, and empathy.
How different is this from SONA or Resident Evil: Village?
Oh! Well sleuthed! SONA is a one-woman show I directed in a spaceship that I built in my one bedroom apartment. When we took the show to Comic-Con, I wanted to put the audience in the mind of the character and since I had designed and built the physical spaceship scenery, I was able to recreate it in virtual reality. That experience actually started my virtual reality journey. And I can’t take as much credit for the incredible CAPCOM Resident Evil franchise for which I’ve done performance capture work. But when you work on an AAA video game, you see a real-time representation of your avatar on screen. Through this lens, I have always thought of virtual reality as another form of ‘puppeteering’. So I guess Non-Player Character has the homegrown hustle of SONA by creating my own art at the bleeding edge of technology by standing on the shoulders of geniuses in the professional fields of spatial computing, 3D rendering, and motion tracking.
Why is grief a theme of this show?
The show emerged from my experiments during the COVID lockdown and many of us were forced to investigate our relationship with grief, isolation and learning the rules of a new technology to connect with our community. Good storytelling asks us to examine the human condition and Non-Player Character invites us to teach a video game character how to navigate the most human experience of all – mortality. At a time when technology has made us more disconnected and threatens to inundate us with artificial simulations; we want that audience to co-create an experience of collective grief.
Why the Edinburgh Fringe?
We’ve been invited around the world to technical and academic conferences to present our virtual reality work and we always snuck in a ‘demo’ of a new song or game mechanic, slowly workshopping the show; but we’ve never had a proper sit down or premiere – and it’s time. The Edinburgh Fringe is a right of passage for live artists and offers us three weeks of nightly performances for the world’s biggest theatre lovers, programmers, and press. Six The Musical started in a ballroom, who knows if we will be so lucky, but there’s nowhere else we’d rather premiere.
Where else can we see you?
I’m extremely lucky to be a part of so many television shows, movies, and viral videos; with my latest feature films, Succubus and The Daylong Brothers, coming out this Fall; and immediately after Fringe, I’ll be headed to The Venice Film Festival to premiere another virtual reality project. I’m @brendanAbradley on all the socials if you want to follow our experience at Fringe.
Zombies or Assassin?
I’ve played both, but I’m a bit biased after directing Assassin’s Creed The Musical.
Dungeons or Dragons?
Having spent most of my career performing in basements and bars, I’ll take Dungeon.
Lawnmower Man or The Matrix?
Oh, that’s a deep cut! Did you know Brett Leonard is also a former regional Shakespeare actor? He and I have nerded out about the possibilities for VR theatre a handful of times so I’m gonna go Lawnmower Man all the way.
Kittens or Puppies?
A gentleman never tells.
Truth or Beauty?
Truth is beautiful. If I can be a bit philosophical for a moment – there is a tendency in technology circles to conflate ‘quality’ with ‘graphic fidelity’. But early research has shown that what we crave is connection and authenticity. As artificial intelligence and bot content oversaturated our world, I think we’re all going to find more beauty in the human component of raw emotion, connection and intimacy.
You can find out more about Bradley here, and you can book for his show here.
