Shakespeare goes digital with Globe ‘playground’
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre is to launch a website aimed at improving its engagement with young children and bolstering its appeal outside of its London base.
The theatre, based on London’s South Bank, is to launch Globe Playground to help introduce children aged five to 11 to the works of William Shakespeare through interactive content based on both the Bard’s body of work and the Elizabethan era.
Harper Ray, digital manager at Globe Education, says the launch of Globe Playground, plus its wider digital strategy, are geared towards young children and audiences outside of the Capital – two demographics that it had previously under-served.
He says: “Our digital strategy is all about building communities online and putting content in front of new audiences. This can also help us gain insight to people that can’t necessarily make it here [to London].”
The launch followed an event earlier in the year where The Globe’s educational arm invited both large and small digital agencies to pitch their wares with the cultural institution, eventually opting to work with The UnCommon Persistent Peril, Tangent Web Design and Surface Impression.
The Globe Playground contains ”character identities”, such as the Beasts of Shakespeare’s Globe, that lead young fans through the Playground’s five sections: Make, Play, Read, Watch and Share.
The Play section includes online games made in consultation with Globe specialists, while the Make section educates audiences and the Watch section hosts short films with behind-the-scenes footage of the theatre itself. The Share section lets users upload their own creative efforts such as poetry and pictures with the site scheduled to go live on 15 July.