As new XR technologies emerge, the potential for significantly increasing the accessibility of theatrical performances grows, creating new opportunities for inclusion and ensuring that wider audiences can fully experience these performances. Our project exemplifies the benefit of using new technologies in preserving cultural heritage and improving accessibility through a pilot on Augmented Reality Theatre, realized by the joint efforts of Gruppo Maggioli, a leading IT company in the Italian market, Adaptit, a telecommunications innovator, and Athens Epidaurus Festival, one of Greece’s leading cultural organisations and organiser of the summer festival of the same name. Our project is part of the European Union-funded Research and Innovation Action VOXReality , investigating voice-driven interaction in XR spaces.
Captions in theatres
Captions are an essential feature for increasing accessibility and inclusivity in theatres. They provide real-time text descriptions of spoken dialogue or important auditory cues. Primarily designed to assist individuals with hearing impairments (e.g. deaf or hard of hearing), they can provide comprehension support for any member of the audience. Providing captions allows any individual to follow the narrative, understand nuanced dialogues, and appreciate the performance’s full context.
Translations of the captions are designed to allow non-native speakers or those who do not understand the performance’s original language to also fully engage with the content. This feature is particularly beneficial in culturally diverse communities or international venues where audiences may come from various linguistic backgrounds. Caption translations open up educational and cultural exchange by broadening the reach of performances to global audiences.
Delivery formats: Open vs. Closed captions
Typical caption delivery in theatres falls under two categories: open captions and closed captions. Open captions are displayed on screens placed around the stage or projected onto the stage itself. They are visible to everyone in the audience and cannot be turned off. Since they are essentially a part of the theatrical stage, they can be designed to artistically blend with the stage’s scenic elements. Open captions fall short when it comes to translations, since only a limited number of languages can be displayed simultaneously. Furthermore, their readability is not uniform across all audience seats, since distance, angle and obstacles affect visibility.
Closed captions are typically displayed on devices, such as captioning devices or smartphone apps, that can be activated by audience members themselves. They provide flexibility to be turned on or off depending on the individual’s need and allow for customizable settings, such as font size and color adjustments, catering to individual preferences. They are also ideal for caption translations, since each user can select their preferred language.
With regards to accessibility and inclusivity, closed captions are a preferable option due to extensive customizations which can improve readability and comprehension. On the downside, they require a more elaborate technical framework to synchronize the delivery of the captions to the audience’s devices and bring up considerations of usability of the device or application from the audience.
AR closed captions
Closed captions are usually delivered using smartphone screens, but they can also be delivered using AR glasses. AR glasses can display the captions directly on the lenses with minimal obstructions to the user’s visual field. This allows the user to focus on a single visual frame of reference, instead of looking back and forth between smartphone screen and stage. This makes for an improved user experience without fear of missing out and can also benefit comprehension because of reduced mental workload. The AR delivery mode multiplies the potential benefits in terms of accessibility, but also the usability concerns and the theatre’s technological capacity.
Contextual Commentary
Aiming to foster a deeper connection with the performance, another feature introduces contextual commentary. Delivered through AR glasses, this commentary may include background information such as character insights, cultural and historical context, or artistic influences. This approach enhances artistic expression by giving theater directors the ability to curate and control the information shared with the audience, but it may also serve as a powerful tool for the preservation and sharing of the cultural context of theatrical plays. This is especially needed for the preservation of the ancient Greek culture and its dissemination to a wider audience. The interactive and immersive mode of delivery allows for a dynamic presentation, overcoming cultural and language barriers and making performances more inclusive.
VoxReality contribution
To assess those benefits in practice, our project aims to deliver an excerpt of an Ancient Greek tragedy to an international audience amplified with augmented reality translated captions and audiovisual effects. The play selected for the project is Hippolytus by Euripides, translated by Kostas Topouzis and adapted by the Athens Epidaurus Festival’s Artistic Director, Katerina Evangelatos. This is an ambitious pilot whose results can help determine AEF’s future course for performances of international appeal – a challenging task taking AEF’s heavy cultural weight into account.
The first user evaluation was completed in May 2024 with a closed performance. Despite being at an early technical and aesthetic level, the initial evaluation was decisively positive with users stating that they would be interested in attending this kind of theatre in real conditions, and that they saw practical benefit and artistic merit in the provided features. Negative feedback was focused on the technical performance of the system and the learning curve of the AR application.
Future Perspectives: Enhancing Theatre Through Innovation
An important potential aspect of future theatre will be the audience’s ability to individualize what is otherwise a collective experience—whether for practical reasons, as in VoxReality, or for various artistic purposes. This technology-supported sensitivity can allow for broader participation, and thus, broader representation in the future of performative arts. Our relationship with the future though can be shaped by revisiting our relationship with past: through this new lens we can lift linguistic barriers to exchange cultural works between communities worldwide, and we can revisit our own cultural heritage with a renewed understanding, both of which can shapes our contemporary cultural identity. This is an exciting era with fast moving changes that leave us with the challenge of comprehending our own potential – a challenge that will be determined by our ability to disseminate knowledge and promote collaboration.
The first public performances will be delivered on May 2025, in Athens, Greece, during the Festival’s 70th anniversary year. and will be open for attendance through a user recruitment process. Theatre lovers who are not fluent in Greek are wholeheartedly welcome to attend.
Olga Chatzifoti
Extended Reality applications developer working with Gruppo Maggioli for the design and development of the Augmented Reality use case of the VOXReality HORIZON research project. She is also a researcher in the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications of the University of Athens. Under the mentorship of Dr. Maria Roussou, she is studying the cognitive and affective dimensions of voice-based interactions in immersive environments, with a focus on interactive digital narratives. She has an extensive, multidisciplinary educational background, spanning from architecture to informatics, and has performed research work on serious game design and immersive environments in Europe, USA and the UK.
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Elena Oikonomou
Project manager for the Athens Epidaurus Festival, representing the organization in the HORIZON Europe VOXReality research project to advance innovative, accessible applications for cultural engagement. With a decade of experience in European initiatives, she specializes in circular economy, accessibility, innovation and skill development. She contributes a background that integrates insights from social sciences and environmental research, supporting AEF’s commitment to outreach and inclusivity. AEF, a prominent cultural institution in Greece, has hosted the renown annual Athens Epidaurus Festival for over 70 years.
