Shakespeare in an Xbox?: A Chat with EK Theater’s Eddie Kim

I first encountered the work of Eddie Kim and his EK Theater — comprised of students from the Pierrepont School in Westport, CT — over half a decade ago at The Brick Theater in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Until then I’d never heard of, much less conceptualized, what Kim has christened Machinima Theater (or “video game puppetry,” as he now prefers to call it). The director-gamer’s innovative idea places classic texts within a live video game setting in an effort to actively engage with today’s audiences, both young and old. I recently spoke with Kim about the effect of gaming technology on traditional theater, his upcoming summer camp workshop “Grimm’s Fairy Tales: Retold in Video Games” at The Brick (open to middle school students possessing laptops and Minecraft accounts), and how he consistently mashes up the seemingly unmixable (yes, even “Grand Theft Ovid” was a critical hit).

To read my interview visit Global Comment.