David Bowie's musical Lazarus recently became a virtual reality experience for audience members at the Victoria & Albert museum, London. Audiences were able to experience the musical performance through VR headsets, as part of the V&A's 2017 Performance Festival which ran from 21 to 30 April. Admission to most of the festival events was free, making it accessible and all-encompassing for its audience.
Footage of the Lazarus production was screened during the VHS to VR event on 30 April at the museum, demonstrating just how far technology has developed in recent years. The curator of the National Video Archive of Performance, Emily Harris, then spoke about how the recording of the musical was created before inviting the audience to experience a recording with a VR headset. As a virtual reality experience it is not clear how the popularity of this may develop for musicals, however the David Bowie musical Lazarus seems to be a perfect starting point.
The museum recorded the production during the musical's London run at the King's Cross Theatre in January of this year, which starred Michael C Hall, Amy Lennox and Sophia Anne Caruso. A 960-seat theatre was built in just seven weeks in order to host the new musical, which had already had a limited run in Manhattan, New York opening in December 2016, just a month before the singer's death.