Nowadays, young people would rather go online than to the theater. A promotion wants to change that. One week before the premiere of the play "Effi Briest", Berlin's Maxim Gorki Theater put on the first social media stage for one evening. Curtains up for the first live play on facebook. We adapted every element of classical theatre to turn facebook into a literal stage. Every character got their own profile and they performed their dialogue live by posting comments to each other on the play's page. The main character is told by her mother to get married. Via a facebook question, she receives the official proposal. Everyone gets invited to the ceremony and the drama takes its course. From changing the relationship status to more surprising theatre situations like a coughing viewer. A prompter for missed entries. Or videos. Of course, the users could interact with the play, too. For example, by collaborating on a love letter to help a character, by choosing the right wedding dress for the main character and by acting out one of the guest roles, which facebook users were cast for earlier, like a horse or a seal. With a total of 1500 user interactions, our 50 minute promotion was supported by more than 1400 online viewers. The critics on- and offline celebrated our performance from Berlin all the way to Los Angeles. Consequently, the following theater performances were all sold out.
| Datum: | 01.01.1970 |
