Why Use Video in Theatre?

Enhancing Live Performance Through Video Design

Theatre is one of our oldest art forms. For thousands of years, its structure has remained remarkably consistent. There is a story, a group of performers, a director shaping the narrative, and an audience gathered in a shared space. Performers stand before that audience and exchange energy, emotion, thought, tension, humour. In return, the audience responds with attention and empathy. They leave changed in some way. They may feel moved, entertained, challenged, distracted from their worries, or invited to see the world differently.

If theatre has worked for millennia in this simple and powerful form, why introduce video?

The answer is not to replace what theatre already does well, but to enhance it.

The Evolution of Video in Theatre

Projected imagery began appearing on stage in more experimental forms during the 1960s, often using slide projectors or film. At the time, it was considered avant garde and disruptive to traditional stagecraft. Over the decades, as technology became more sophisticated and accessible, video evolved from novelty to established practice.

Today, the role of the video designer is widely recognised within theatrical production. In some sectors, it is formally awarded. That recognition is remarkable for a discipline that barely existed in its current form a few decades ago.

But what exactly is video in theatre?

At its simplest, video is an intervention into the theatrical playing space. It might take the form of projection, LED walls, television screens, live cameras, pre recorded footage, 2D or 3D animation. It can be abstract or literal, reactive or fixed. What unites these forms is intention. Video in theatre is not decoration. It is storytelling.

Video as Scenic Support

In its most basic application, video functions as scene setting.

If a moment takes place on a bright summer day, a blue sky might be projected behind the performers. In an opera’s inevitable storm, thunderclouds and rain can animate the stage. If a building burns, projected flames can heighten tension. These interventions may be straightforward, but they help situate the audience within the world of the play. They reinforce context and deepen believability.

While such uses are not the most radical expressions of video design, they are effective tools in supporting narrative clarity and atmosphere.

Extending the Scenic World

More interestingly, video can extend or even become the scenic environment.

Large upstage LED walls often act as living backdrops, carrying perspective beyond the physical limits of the stage. When integrated carefully with lighting and set design, video can feel indistinguishable from built scenery, except that it moves, breathes, and transforms.

In productions like Disney’s Frozen, the upstage LED world functions as a direct extension of the fairy tale scenic design. The textures, colour palettes, and painterly qualities are meticulously matched to the physical set. The goal is cohesion. The audience should feel as though the stage extends infinitely into a magical world beyond the proscenium.

This kind of integration requires extraordinary precision. Video, scenic, and lighting designers must collaborate closely to ensure that tones, materials, and atmospheres sit harmoniously in the same visual language.

In Mean Girls the Musical, the integration went even further. Much of the stage itself was composed of LED surfaces. Bathrooms, bedrooms, school corridors, and cafeterias emerged through digital environments. This approach suited the show’s filmic pace and rapid transitions. The stage could shift from one location to another with cinematic speed, enhancing comedic timing and narrative momentum.

In these cases, video does not sit on top of the production. It is part of the production’s architecture.

Video as Psychological Space

For many designers, the most compelling use of video is not literal but psychological. Here, video becomes more than environment. It becomes a character. It reacts. It holds opinion. It creates visual subtext.

In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, the video design reflects the inner experience of Christopher, the central character. The stage world shifts in response to his perception of reality. Simple tasks can become overwhelming. Patterns, numbers, and lights intensify to convey sensory overload. In moments of imagination, such as when Christopher dreams of travelling into space with his pet rat, the environment transforms into expansive cosmic fantasy. When the moment ends, the world returns to realism.

The video design allows the audience to inhabit Christopher’s internal landscape. It makes visible what would otherwise remain private thought and emotion. In doing so, it strengthens empathy.

This is where video becomes transformative. It does not just show us where we are, but how it feels to be there.

Translating Energy and Music

Video can also serve as an abstract translator of movement and sound.

In American Psycho the Musical, the stage floor itself was composed of LED tiles. The performers stood and danced on a living surface that responded to rhythm, choreography, and musical intensity. The floor became a visual instrument, pulsing, framing, accelerating the action.

Much like visuals in a concert setting, this integration of light, music, and movement created a unified sensory experience. It did not distract from the performers. It amplified their energy. The result was immersive and visceral.

When video responds to music and physicality in real time, it can pull audience and performer into the same emotional current.

Sensitivity to the Performer

Despite all these possibilities, one principle remains central. Theatre is about the human being on stage.

In film, the image is composed within a single fixed frame. In theatre, the frame is alive and multidimensional. It includes the performer, their voice, their movement, the set, the costume, lighting, props, sound, and the shared space of the audience. Video is only one layer among many.

If video overwhelms the performer, it fails. If it distracts from the exchange of live energy, it undermines the art form it seeks to enhance.

The task of the video designer is not to create spectacle for its own sake, but to contribute to a composite image in which the performer remains central. The video must sit in harmony with every other element. Lighting sculpts the body. Costume defines character. Sound shapes atmosphere. Set anchors place.

When all these components align, something powerful happens. The stage becomes a living image. Not a flat rectangle like a screen, but a layered, breathing composition grounded in human presence.

Why Video in Theatre?

Because theatre is about experience.

Video, when used thoughtfully, can deepen emotion, clarify narrative, extend imagination, heighten drama, and reveal psychological truth. It can transform physical space into emotional space. It can accelerate storytelling or suspend it in dreamlike stillness.

Theatre does not need video to survive. It never has. But in the hands of sensitive collaborators, video becomes a tool that magnifies what theatre already does best, bringing people together in a shared moment of wonder.

And when that tool is used with care, collaboration, and respect for the performer at the centre of it all, the result is not technology layered onto theatre. It is theatre expanded.