Our investigation has focused on two issues; interactivity and the position of the computer in the narrative. Interactivity has always been one of the characteristics of the theatre performance; computers offer a way to extend the reach and character of this interactivity, and the potential to destabilize and expand the theatre setting. Computers can force the audience to be aware that it watching a play, and create critical distance from the action; Bertholt Brecht describes this as Verfemdungseffekt, or "estrangement effect". The traditional use of spectacle in opera (thinks of elephants on the stage, or flooding a stage with water) provides a broad range of strategies and operations that the computer can now assume.

The main staging concept involves the construction of a rolling set that serves both a physical element (siege tower, island, cave) and a platform for digital manipulation and projection. The movement of the platform to different positions and orientations on the stage, particularly upstage and downstage, is in concert with the scenese and acts of the opera. The interactive aspects of the opera involved 4 techniques.

Wireless mini video camera to LCD display: Using a wireless camera attacted to a head-mounted harness provided hands-free, real time narrowcasting that was few directly to a LCD screen that was mounted on the smaller rolling stair that moved to different parts of the stage.

Voice controlled projected images: In two scenes, the input from microphones placed on the stage was used to control the intensity of images projected on the cyclorama at the reaar of the stage. The projected images are meant to provide a larger, supersize scale to the movement of the singers, in keeping with the idea of operatic spectacle.

Video feedback loop: Using Quartz computer, an iSight camera and a projector, we were able to arrange for a video feedback loop that was projected onto a white spandex screen that formed part of the enclosure of the island. This allowed the singers to interact with their own images both as digital feedback and as they physically pushed and pulled on the screen. The video feedback, combined with the realignment of the rolling stage, evokes the dark underworld that is part of Purcell's opera.

Real time motion capture: The witch character in the opera wore a ShapeWrap wireless motion capture suit that allowed for a radius of 200 feet of motion. The motion files were captured real time, processed through Motion Builder and projected onto the cyclorama.  Motion capture is used in the play to suggest the supernatural powers of the witches, analogus to digital techniques that appeaer to transcend the traditional constraints of the natural law.