We partnered Samsung with the Royal Shakespeare Company – one of Britain’s most reputable cultural institutions - to create RE:Shakespeare, a free android app, distributed as part of the RSC’s Education Outreach Programme. RE:Shakespeare helps students explore Shakespeare’s work through performance - standing up, speaking out loud – the way his plays were intended it to be experienced. As they work through a series of immersive 360° and interactive challenges, hosted by celebrity influencers and performance experts, they’re transformed from passive readers to active performers, discovering his stories, characters and language in exciting new ways. As they engage directly and physically with the words and rhythms of the text, Shakespeare’s complex thoughts and language start to make sense, inviting an instinctive and personal learning response.

The RE:Shakespeare app helps children encounter Shakespeare in fun new ways, using active problem-solving methods and gamification – all via the language and technology we know they love. Developed to make full use of android features, the UX is designed around three primary modules – Play, Practice and Perform – each with its own unique interaction design, encouraging a certain type of learning response. Students work through challenges from celebrity influencers & RSC experts, experiencing a visual form of interactive storytelling that’s both quick and intuitive. PLAY introduces Shakespeare through games, hosted by actor David Tennant, rapper Akala and Shlomo the beatboxer. PRACTICE explores Shakespeare’s intent, guided by RSC experts and featuring a world-first 360° performance on the RSC stage. Finally PERFORM allows interactive on-screen performance, helping bring Shakespeare’s text to life for a new generation.

At launch, the RE:Shakespeare app was distributed, via a bespoke RSC digital channel to RSC practitioners across the UK as part of the company’s education outreach programme. From here, it reached 1,200 schools, 2,000 teachers and over 530,000 young people creating word of mouth buzz. Wider PR activity created 68 pieces of targeted coverage with a total reach of 707,594,733 and a media value of £1,173,316. Highlights included 20 pieces of national coverage including features in The Times, The Telegraph and The Mail on Sunday. Online, cultural influencers from The Guardian to Fast Company have praised its intent and it has been described on one prominent Shakespeare blog as “…not just-a must-have but a “drop-whatever-it-is-that-you’re-doing-and-get-down-to-Google-Play-and-download-it-now” must have.” And every time a student picks up the app and delivers their performance, they are responding in the way that Shakespeare always intended – and experiencing it all through Samsung technology.