A play with no actors on stage? That’s the bet behind the world’s first play in mixed reality

When a stranger smiles at you, you smile back. That is why, when Sir Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings, X-Men, Amadeus) walked on the stage in front of me, looked me straight in the eye, and smiled at me, I smiled back. It was the polite thing to do. It was also completely unnecessary, because McKellen was not actually on the stage in front of me. He smiled at me through a pair of special glasses.

The reason for this unusual social interaction is called An Ark, which bills itself as the first play to be created in mixed-reality.