How do you create theater that is a meaningful platform for public interaction and engagement both live and online? How do you reach a remote audience, complementing the power of the physical moment? How can you use hybrid approaches to stretch the traditional boundaries between creator and audience and make the performing arts more participatory? The Hybrid Theatre Toolkit (opens in new tab) provides performing arts professionals with practical tools for developing hybrid theater experiences. Whether you're just starting or already experimenting, this tool is here to inspire, structure the process, and offer insights tested in practice.
From the research into the future of venues
The toolkit was developed as part of the project Venues of the Future (opens in new tab), a research and development project created as part of the Innovatielabs (opens in new tab) program with funding from the Creative Industries Fund NL (opens in new tab)and CLICKNL (opens in new tab).
The Venues of the Future project brings together an international team of creative partners and researchers. NITE (opens in new tab) and DEN (opens in new tab) from the Netherlands, Substrakt (opens in new tab), Annette Mees (Audience Labs) (opens in new tab), and AEA Consulting (opens in new tab) from the United Kingdom, and Khalid Bengrhib / 2K.FAR from Morocco join forces in this project. This Dutch-Moroccan-British collaboration aims to create a valuable exchange between theater audiences and creators in all three countries, with the creative process at its core.
The experiences and insights from this multi-year trajectory are compiled in the Hybrid Theatre Toolkit (opens in new tab). Now available in a format that supports professionals in a pragmatic and accessible way through all phases of developing and collaborating on hybrid theater experiences.
What does the toolkit offer?
The toolkit is intended for creators, technical partners, producers, artistic and business leaders who want to develop or enhance hybrid productions.
A step-by-step plan in five phases: from idea development to evaluation and archiving
Concrete tips and points of attention for project management, collaboration, and audience engagement
Reflection questions on inclusion, audience, technology, and sustainability
The toolkit is currently only available in English; the Dutch version will be published later.
DEN is a knowledge partner in the Venues of the Future research
By making this toolkit widely available, DEN aims to contribute
to the digital transformation of the performing arts. Not as an end in
itself, but as a means to enable new forms of experience, inclusion, and
creativity. The Hybrid Theatre Toolkit supports cultural professionals
in shaping hybrid work consciously, purposefully, and artistically
relevant.
- Go to the toolkit via hybrid-theatre-toolkit.den.nl (opens in new tab)
- Download the PDF here (opens in new tab)
- More about the research: Venues of the Future (opens in new tab)
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