1 in 5 women have been passed over for a promotion in favor of a male colleague. With numerous studies showing how gender holds women back in the workplace, we set out to shine a light on gender bias by using an iconic patriarchal story–and flipped the script.

We modernized a 400 year old play to reflect the bias women face today. For the first time ever, we took a literary classic that was written and told from the male point of view and retold it from a female perspective.

In the original play, the villain Iago is furious at Othello about being passed over for a promotion as lieutenant. In this AR musical, we reimagined Iago as a woman–who, consumed by internalized rage for being overlooked simply because of her gender, turns into a vengeful monster. Showing how patriarchy makes villains out of women who challenge convention.

We launched a Snap lens that showed Iago’s transformation, on the same day as the opening of the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival where the AR musical “Shakespeare Reversed: Iago the Green Eyed Monster” was live for two weeks. An app was launched on the opening date as well, enabling users to experience the AR musical wherever they are.

In the on-ground activation, we built physical platforms with dioramas, scaled to fit on a phone screen or a tablet so the audience can direct their own immersive experience with 360-degree engagement. Using Verizon 5G, viewers seamlessly moved from IRL to virtual, pushing the boundaries of storytelling. Shakespeare ReVersed leverages technology to put the audience in control, and more importantly, get one step closer to reversing gender bias.