In times of digital entertainment, young people would rather go online than to the theatre. How can we change that? Our idea: together with the Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin, we created the first social-media stage, with a live play on Facebook.To promote the classical German drama 'Effi Briest', we developed a special Facebook adaptation. A week before the theatre premiere, we staged our online production via the Facebook group, the 'Maxim Gorki Theatre Online Stage'.Every character got their own individual Facebook-profile containing pictures, interests, 'likes', etc. At exactly 8pm on the premiere night, our first Facebook ensemble slipped into their roles and performed live. They used all the options Facebook has to offer: dialogue in comment-fields, 'likes', questions to each other and invitations to events. They also changed their relationship-status, shared links, videos and photos.Even the users could interact with the play. For example, by collaborating on a love-letter, by choosing the main character’s wedding dress, or by acting out one of the guest-roles for which they auditioned beforehand.With a total of over 1,500 interactions, more than 1,400 viewers supported our play. And the online and offline critics celebrated the performance from Berlin all the way to Los Angeles.'The first live play on Facebook' reached more than a 100,000 Google results, tweets and shares within only a few days, leading to the biggest media buzz the theatre ever experienced. Consequently, the following theatre-performances were all sold out.

Every character got their Facebook profile to appear on the play’s page. And they used all options Facebook offers: they posted comments, likes, questions, and events, as well as they shared links, videos and photos. We especially focussed on user involvement and let them interact with the play. For example, by collaborating on a love letter, and by choosing the main character’s wedding dress.To promote the online premiere, we only used online media: the theatre’s Facebook fanpage and their newsletter. The promotional effort included teaser videos with theatre associates explaining the idea and a user casting to act out one of the play’s guest roles. All these elements culminated in the 50-minute live Facebook play on premiere night.

With a total of over 1,500 interactions, more than 1,400 viewers supported our play. The performance was enthusiastically (and digitally) applauded by the audience, which immediately demanded an encore. Both online and offline critics celebrated the performance, too, with national news coverage (Spiegel Online and Tagesspiegel, for example) and international news-coverage (Shanghai Daily, L.A. Times, Mashable, etc.).

'The first live play on Facebook' reached more than 100,000 Google results, tweets and shares within only a few days, leading to the biggest media buzz the theatre ever experienced. Consequently, the following theatre performances were all sold out.