About FIREFLY ENTERTAINMENT ITI:
The Firefly Entertainment Interactive Theatre Initiative (aka Firefly Entertainment ITI) began in 2002 when students from Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) collaborated with students from the University's School of Drama in an experimental lab called "Building Virtual Worlds". Given the task to create performance-based pieces using virtual reality, the finished projects were shown to packed houses and made the cover of the Pittsburgh City Paper.
After "Building Virtual Worlds", select members of the lab became dedicated to the idea of creating theatrical performances that used technology to expand the scope of storytelling by blending the aesthetics of video games and themed entertainment with traditional theatrical productions in the hopes of attracting new audiences who do not regularly attend the theater. With this in mind, Firefly Entertainment ITI developed a partnership with the ETC and collaborated on work performed at The Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival of New Plays and New York's Ensemble Studio Theatre.
With technological interactivity as its cornerstone, the company is first and foremost interested creating entertaining and challenging work for all audiences. Our goal is to develop plays with multi-level linear narratives where audience/participant will have a new experience every time he or she watches the production.
Having recently relocated from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles, Firefly Entertainment ITI hopes to take advantage of the large community of technically accomplished artists in this city to develop work that redefines the boundaries of theatre, film, art, literature, and music to create what Richard Wagner called Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft, "The Artwork of the Future".